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THE  BROKEN  WALL 


EDWARD  A.  STEINER'S 
Studies   of  Immigration 

The  Broken  Wall 

Stories  of  the  Mingling  Folk.  Illus- 
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The  Immigrant  Tide — 
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The  Broken  IVall 


STORIES  OF  THE 
MINGLING  FOLK 


By  y 

Edward  A.  Sterner 

Author  of  "On  the  Trail  of  the  Immigrant" 
"Against  the  Current"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


New  York     Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming  H.  Revel  I  Company 

London        and  Edinburgh 


Copyright,  191 1,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  North  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  Street,  W. 
London:  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:     100  Princes  Street 


To 


Mrs.  Eckley B.  Coxe 

Those  who  could  not  express  their  gratitude 
— of  strange   race   and    alien  tongue, 
'''the  maimed,  the  halt,  the  blind" ; 
the  spirits  of  stricken  toilers  whose 
widows  and  orphans  you  have 
succoured  and  sustained — 
these  voice  their  thanks 
throtigh  me  in  the 
dedication  of 
this  book 


INTRODUCTION 


The  Wall 

THE  great  levelling  forces  of  Democ- 
racy, recruited  from  many  sources, 
have  all  halted  before  the  racial  wall. 
However  slight  the  ethnic  barrier,  even 
Christianity  has  struck  its  colours  before  it, 
and  turned  back  in  spite  of  an  honest  desire 
for  universal  conquest. 

Nowhere  is  this  defeat  more  apparent  than 
in  the  United  States,  where  a  tint  is  equivalent 
to  a  taint,  a  crooked  nose  to  a  crooked  char- 
acter, and  where  a  peculiar  slant  of  the  eyes 
is  taken  as  unmistakable  evidence  that  the 
race  so  marked  cannot  see  straight. 

Yet  the  wall  has  been  broken  here  and 
there  by  the  love  of  God,  which  asks  nothing 
and  gives  everything ;  by  that  other  love 
which  is  also  of  God,  which  asks  everything, 
and  gives  everything  ;  by  the  passion  for  fair 
play  which  is  almost  a  national  characteristic, 

S 


6 


INTR  OD  UCTION 


and  by  those  vital,  but  uncatalogued  forces 
which  are  called  environment. 

The  sketches  in  this  book  are  fragments 
of  that  broken  wall,  gathered  in  various 
places,  and  there  were  both  joy  and  grief  in 
finding  them. 

They  are  not  shaped  to  fit  any  theory,  or 
intended  to  teach  a  lesson,  but  it  is  the  author's 
fervent  wish  that  they  may  contribute  to  the 
enlargement  of  human  sympathies  and  to 
the  elimination  of  ethnic  fears  and  prejudices. 

E.  A.  S. 

Grinnell,  Iowa. 


CONTENTS 


I.  THE  LADY  OF  THE  GOOD  WILL 

MINES  ii 

II.  COMMITTING  A  MATRIMONY  .  32 

III.  "H1SN,  MINE  AND  OURN "        .  54 

IV.  A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN       .  .65 

V.  MULES     AND    THE  TOLSTOY 

DOCTRINE      ....  84 

VI.  WHEN  MISS  MARY  PASSES    .  .102 

VII.  DOBRA  BRIDGET    .       .       .  .117 

VIII.  HOT,  THROUGH  MANY  GENER- 

ATIONS  131 

IX.  THE  FELLOWSHIP  OF  SUFFERING  142 

X.  WHEN  THE  SUN  STANDS  STILL  159 
XL      THE  DARK  PEOPLE       .       .  .177 

XII.  «  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN  ? "      .  .188 

XIII.  AMERICANUS  SUM        .       .  .20c 


7 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FROM  "  BETWEEN  THE  TRUSINA 

AND  THE  BRESINA  "         .       .  Frontispiece 

"  THE  TASK  OF  MINING  WAS  HARD  . 

AND  THE  RISKS  GREAT"  .       .  .13 

"PART  OF  'EM'S  HISN,  ANOTHER 
PART  OF  'EM'S  MINE  AND  ONE  OF 
'EM'S  OURN"  61 

"HIS   CHILDHOOD  HAD  BEEN  IN  A 

FOREIGN  LAND "  .  65 

"SOON  THERE  WILL  BE  SILENCE 
WHICH  WILL  DEEPEN  INTO  SUL- 
LENNESS  AND  END  IN  REVOLT"  .  115 

"  NEVER  BEFORE  SO  CLOSE  TO- 
GETHER AS  IN  THIS  LEVELLING, 
ALL-EMBRACING,  MYSTERIOUS  DIS- 
EASE "  122 

"HE  MUST  GO  TO  THAT  HEATHEN 
A-MERICA,  AND  LOOK  AFTER  HIS 
COUNTRYMEN"  166 

"UNDERNEATH  THE  PRUSSIAN  HEL- 
MET THEY  SAW  OTHER  SMALL, 
FIERCE,  BLINKING  EYES"        .  .189 


9 


I 


The  Lady  of  the  Good  Will  Mines 

"TFI  were  a  poet  I "  A  thousand  times  I 
have  said  this  and,  saying  it,  lost  my 
chance  to  write  plainly  and  honestly 
what  I  have  seen  and  felt.  So  now  I  am  go- 
ing to  write,  although  I  am  not  a  poet.  I  am 
going  to  write  of  a  woman  and  a  man.  The 
two  as  far  apart  in  wealth  and  culture  as  are 
the  places  in  which  they  were  born — thou- 
sands of  leagues  apart,  and  the  great  ocean 
between ;  so  far  apart  that  they  could  not 
speak  each  other's  language.  She  knew  but 
two  words  of  his,  and  he  three  of  hers — and 
two  of  these  he  could  not,  or  should  not, 
have  used  in  the  presence  of  a  woman. 

The  two  words  of  his  language  which  she 
knew  were  boly,  which  means  "  it  hurts  "  or 
"does  it  hurt?"  and  dobre,  which  means 
"good"  or  "I  will  make  it  good."  The 

only  English  word  that  he  could  speak  with 
ii 


12  The  BROKEN  WALL 


propriety  was  "  Lady,"  and  by  that  he  meant 
this  particular  woman  ;  for  she  was,  in  the 
true  historic  and  linguistic  sense,  a  lady. 
The  other  two  words  he  had  learned  from  the 
mine  foreman,  and  that  explains  why  they 
could  not  be  spoken  in  her  presence. 

Who  was  this  woman  and  who  this  man, 
so  far  apart  and  yet  so  near  each  other  ? 

The  "  Lady "  was  the  best  product  of  a 
civilization  which  gave  woman  her  fullest 
opportunity  without  spoiling  her  by  ease  and 
luxury.  She  was  a  Christian,  and  in  her,  re- 
ligion had  borne  its  full  fruitage  :  gentleness 
of  spirit,  strength  of  character,  and  love  for 
her  fellow  men. 

Her  home  was  built  above  the  mines  where 
black  diamonds  were  dug  by  patient  toilers, 
and  she  early  realized  that  it  was  warmed 
and  lighted  and  she  and  her  children  fed  by 
the  product  of  this  bitter  toil.  She  made  the 
Good  Will  property  a  model  mining  town, 
which  was  no  easy  task ;  for  miners  are  not 
model  men,  and  the  hazard  of  the  work 
makes  them  reckless  with  money  and  morals. 

She  did  all  this  before  such  a  thing  as  the 


The  LAD  Y of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  13 

"  social  conscience  "  was  discovered  ;  even 
before  the  reward  for  such  tasks  came  in 
having  one's  picture  printed  in  the  maga- 
zines. 

In  Good  Will,  and  there  alone,  in  all  that 
bleak  region,  miners'  huts  were  clean  and 
sanitary ;  there  were  good  schools  and  a 
hospital,  and  the  ugly  culm-piles  were  not 
permitted  to  crowd  too  closely  upon  human 
habitations.  The  task  of  mining  was  hard 
and  the  risks  great,  but  there  were  a  master 
and  a  mistress  who  were  the  miners'  friends, 
and  that  made  the  work  easier  and  the  mines 
safer. 

Then  dawned  upon  the  industrial  world 
the  age  of  consolidation,  and  the  companies 
pressed  closer  and  closer  upon  the  Good  Will 
property,  which  was  not  in  the  market.  The 
master  of  the  Good  Will  mines  would  not  sell. 
The  miners  were  his  friends,  and  he  knew 
the  spirit  of  the  great  companies,  which 
cared  for  dividends  and  dividends  alone. 
But  his  coal  was  left  standing  on  the  tracks 
while  other  coal  travelled  to  the  markets ; 
mountains  of  uncarted  coal  choked  the  mouth 


14  The  BROKEN  WALL 

of  the  pit ;  and  then  he  sold  because  he  had 
to. 

It  was  not  a  niggardly  company  this ;  it 
paid  all  that  the  property  was  worth — mil- 
lions and  millions  of  dollars.  The  exact  fig- 
ures would  make  one  dizzy  to  contemplate, 
although  we  are  becoming  calloused  to  the 
shock  which  comes  from  the  misfortunes  of 
great  fortunes.  When  the  master  of  Good 
Will  died,  he  left  all  this  wealth  to  the 
"  Lady." 

Did  she  move  to  New  York  and  build  her- 
self a  mansion  on  Fifth  Avenue  big  enough 
to  lose  her  soul  in?  Did  she  take  her 
daughters  and  hawk  them  on  the  matrimonial 
markets  of  Europe,  selling  them  to  the  high- 
est titled  bidder  ?  No.  She  stayed  in  Good 
Will.  The  mines  were  sold,  it  is  true ;  but 
the  miners  were  still  there.  Those  who 
helped  to  make  the  wealth  were  gone — the 
Welsh  and  English  miners  of  twenty  years 
ago,  and  their  places  were  taken  by  crude, 
unlettered,  half-heathen  peasants,  who  could 
not  speak  her  language  or  understand  her 
motives.    She  stayed  in  Good  Will  with  the 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  1 5 

miners,  standing  between  them  and  the  rapa- 
cious company — their  advocate  and  friend, 
their  "  lady  bountiful." 

If  I  were  a  poet,  I  should  not  write  about 
the  town  Good  Will,  and  I  fear  if  I  were  a 
millionaire  I  would  not  live  there. 

Years  ago  those  mountains  were  beautiful 
— the  trees  green  and  golden  in  the  spring 
and  autumn ;  but  now  the  hills  are  disem- 
bowelled and  refuse  lies  about  in  cold,  dreary 
heaps,  with  here  and  there  evidences  that  the 
Creator  artist  is  trying  to  bring  back  the 
beauty  of  which  men  have  robbed  Him. 

A  vine  has  caught  in  a  scanty  bit  of  soil, 
and  He  is  draping  it  about  the  culm-heaps  ; 
a  tree  is  ineffectively  struggling  to  spread  its 
branches,  its  leaves  parched  from  breathing 
the  sulphur-laden  air.  The  creeks  which  ran 
merrily  to  the  river  are  now  choked  by  rotten 
tree  stumps,  around  which  empty  tin  cans, 
beer  barrels,  and  broken  whiskey  flasks 
cling,  holding  back  the  thick  filth  in  which 
no  fish  can  live  and  no  child  can  play  and 
dream  of  golden  days. 

The  model  village  has  almost  fallen  to  de- 


16  The  BROKEN  WALL 

cay  and  the  houses  are  feeders  for  dividends  ; 
the  paint  is  eaten  off,  the  fences  are  broken 
down,  the  shingles  are  in  shreds  and  do  not 
keep  out  the  torrential  rains.  In  vain  the 
"  Lady  "  protests ;  the  more  she  protests,  the 
more  unbearable  life  becomes  in  Good  Will, 
and  yet  the  "  Lady  "  stays,  because  the  miners 
are  still  there. 

The  man  was  born  in  the  Carpathians,  in  a 
picturesque  village  by  a  pure  stream.  He 
was  baptized  into  the  Greek  Catholic  Church, 
and  they  named  him  after  the  patron  saint 
of  the  place — Joseph.  Only  the  fit  survive 
infancy  in  that  village,  for  the  climate  is 
rigorous,  life  is  Spartan,  the  food  coarse  and 
not  always  plentiful.  Toil  begins  early  and 
is  unremitting. 

Joseph  grew  to  be  a  strong  lad,  was  con- 
firmed, found  his  pleasures  in  drinking  and 
dancing,  courted  in  his  rough  way,  married 
and  begot  children.  The  world  was  small ; 
it  began  where  the  geese  grazed,  at  the  edge 
of  the  village  pasture,  and  ended  with  the  last 
acre  on  the  Baron's  estate.  Wealth,  Joseph 
never  hoped  to  possess,  for  that  was  in  the 


The  LAD  Y  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  1 7 

possession  of  a  few  and  remained  there.  Of 
honours  and  station  in  life  he  never  dreamed. 
He  was  a  poor  peasant's  son  ;  his  father  left 
him  a  cabin  and  three  acres  of  land,  and  he 
would  think  himself  fortunate  to  die  with  these 
things  still  in  his  possession ;  for  the  love  of 
strong  drink  was  growing  among  the  peas- 
ants and  the  mortgaging  of  property  to  the 
Jews  was  becoming  a  common  thing. 

Into  Joseph's  discouragement  one  day  there 
shone  a  ray  of  light.  Creeping  slowly 
through  the  valleys,  leaping  over  the  moun- 
tains, came  a  new  hope.  Tidings  from 
America  told  of  wealth,  of  mountains  of  gold, 
awaiting  those  who  dared.  That  wealth  be- 
longed to  a  few,  to  those  born  to  it  and  those 
who  were  shrewd  enough  to  bargain  for  it, 
was  nothing  but  a  cheap  myth.  In  America, 
any  man  who  dared,  got  it  by  using  a  shovel 
and  a  pickax.  Even  the  toilers  might  reach 
a  high  station  in  life  in  this  New  World — this 
wonderful  America. 

One  and  another  went  from  that  village  in 
the  Carpathians  and  returned  with  money. 
What  mattered  it  if  they  came  back  smelling 


1 8  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 


of  carbolic  acid,  with  sallow  skins,  limping 
limbs,  and  lungs  which  laboured  like  the 
blacksmith's  wheezy  bellows?  They  came 
back  with  money  and  bought  land — ten, 
twenty,  even  fifty  acres— and  the  Baron's  es- 
tates, for  ages  in  the  possession  of  one  fam- 
ily, began  to  dwindle,  while  the  peasants 
built  themselves  brick  houses,  put  in  iron 
stoves,  and  had  a  pig-killing  regularly  twice 
a  year.  Joseph  could  not  resist  the  sweeping 
current  which  carried  the  young  manhood 
away  across  the  sea.  Many  from  his  village 
had  gone  to  Good  Will  and  wrote  back  about 
the  wages,  the  meat  every  day,  the  beautiful 
cottages,  and  the  "  Lady  "  ;  so  he  went. 

Thirty-two  years  of  age  he  was,  his  pass- 
port said,  five  feet  six  inches  high,  of  dark 
complexion,  gray  eyes,  and  no  bodily  blem- 
ish. He  had  to  leave  his  cabin,  his  wife,  and 
two  children ;  but  in  two,  at  the  most  three, 
years  he  would  be  back,  and  then  the  good 
times  would  be  theirs.  In  the  meanwhile 
"  Z  boghcm  "  (with  God).  The  wife  cried  and 
the  children  cried  ;  he  did  not  cry  until  they 
were  out  of  sight.    Then  came  the  excitement 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  19 

of  a  first  far  journey,  the  pain  died  in  his 
heart  and  the  fierce  passion  for  saving  money 
killed  the  homesickness. 

When  he  reached  America,  he  bought  a 
railway  ticket  to  Good  Will.  Once  there,  he 
found  a  boarding-place  with  twenty  others  in 
the  house  of  a  widowed  country  woman  :  he 
bought  a  cap  and  a  lamp,  a  pickax  and  a 
shovel,  and  went  to  work,  helping  a  miner. 
He  lived  almost  like  an  animal,  thinking 
of  neither  body  nor  soul ;  only  of  wife  and 
children  and  saving  enough  money  to  send 
home  to  buy  land. 

For  a  year  he  helped  another  miner ;  then 
came  the  chance  to  do  that  perilous  but  re- 
munerative thing  of  blasting  coal  by  himself. 

From  the  company's  store  he  bought  pow- 
der and  fuse,  and  went  to  work  in  his  cham- 
ber. One  year,  two  years  more,  and  then 
house,  wife,  children,  and  land. 

Fiercely  he  dug  into  the  unresponsive  rock 
and  lighted  the  fuse,  which  was  defective,  and 
damp  from  the  sweat  of  his  body.  He  went 
back  behind  the  sheltering  rock  and  waited  ; 
but  the  fire  did  not  leap,  the  shower  of  coal 


20 


The  BROKEN  WALL 


did  not  fall.  Cautiously  he  crept  near,  broke 
off  the  seared  end  of  the  fuse,  lighted  it  again, 
and  leaped  back  to  his  shelter.  Again  no 
blast,  and  he  waited  five,  ten  long  minutes. 
The  foreman  passed  by  and  said  the  two 
words  of  English  with  which  Joseph  had 
grown  familiar,  and  others  that  he  but  vaguely 
guessed  at.  The  foreman  was  warning  him 
not  to  return  to  that  chamber,  but  Joseph  did 
not  understand.  He  was  seeing  the  land, 
the  coveted  land  ;  so  he  crept  back,  bent  over 
the  reluctant  fuse,  and  the  charge  struck  him 
straight  in  the  eyes. 

When  he  was  brought  to  the  top  of  the 
mine  with  burned  face  and  singed  hair,  the 
"Lady"  was  there  to  receive  him ;  for  that 
was  just  why  she  had  stayed  in  Good  Will. 
She  was  there  with  her  doctor  and  her  nurses. 
She  asked,  "  Will  he  live?"  The  doctor  re- 
plied :  "  I  am  afraid  he  will — he  is  not  hurt 
badly,  but  his  eyes  are  gone." 

Joseph  lay  in  the  hospital  in  a  soft  bed. 
There  were  bandages  over  his  eyes  and  it 
was  dark  all  around  him.  With  skillful 
fingers   gentle   nurses   cared  for  him  and 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  21 

fed  him  dainties  between  his  burned  lips. 
He  was  hurt,  he  knew  ;  but  as  he  felt  his 
swelling  muscle  and  supple  limbs  he 
thought  there  was  nothing  serious  the 
matter,  and  that  in  a  week  or  a  month  he 
would  be  at  work  again,  getting  money  for 
the  land. 

One  morning  a  man  came  to  him,  called 
him  Joe,  and  told  him  that  he  had  brought 
him  money,  two  hundred  dollars — all  his  if 
he  would  sign  a  paper  promising  not  to  go 
to  court  and  ask  for  more. 

Why  should  he  not  sign  a  paper?  Why 
should  he  ask  for  more  money  ?  What 
a  benevolent  gentleman  1  So  Joseph  made 
his  mark,  for  he  could  not  write.  There 
were  two  witnesses,  and  they  signed  their 
names. 

A  week  passed,  and  another  and  still  an- 
other before  they  removed  the  bandage  from 
his  eyes.  He  felt  relieved  with  the  pressure 
gone,  but  something  seemed  still  left  lying 
there — it  shut  the  daylight  out.  Why  not 
remove  it  all  ?  The  pain  was  gone.  He  felt 
with  his  hard  fingers.    The  bandage  was  all 


22  The  BROKEN  WALL 


gone  ;  yet  he  could  not  see.  A  great  cry  like 
that  of  a  wounded  beast  rose  from  his  breast. 
Blind!  Blind  1  Blind  1  A  beggar!  No 
land,  no  home — all  gone !  But  he  had  two 
hundred  dollars  which  the  benevolent  gentle- 
man had  given  him.  He  could  pay  his  pas- 
sage home  and  have  one  hundred  and  seventy 
dollars  left. 

For  one  hundred  and  seventy  dollars  he 
had  sold  his  eyes  1 

The  "  Lady  "  was  there.  That  was  why 
she  had  stayed  in  Good  Will.  She  touched 
his  sightless  eyes  and  said  :  "  Boly  ?  "  (Does 
it  hurt  ?) 

And  he  cried  like  a  child  :  "  Boly  !  Boly  ! 
Boly  /  " 

Then  she  said, ' '  Dobre  !  Dobre  !  Dobre  / ' ' 
(It  will  be  good  !    It  will  be  good !) 

She  meant  to  fight  his  case  for  him.  The 
fuse  the  company  had  sold  him  was  defect- 
ive ;  he  was  not  sufficiently  instructed  in  the 
use  of  powder ;  the  foreman's  warning  was 
ineffective,  for  he  did  not  understand  it. 

The  "  Lady  "  consulted  her  lawyer,  she  ap- 
pealed to  the  courts,  she  fought  the  company. 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  23 

That  was  her  business  ;  that  was  why  she 
stayed  in  Good  Will. 

But  the  company  had  the  paper,  Joseph 
had  signed  it  in  the  presence  of  witnesses ; 
he  had  accepted  two  hundred  dollars.  There 
it  was  in  black  and  white :  he  had  assumed 
the  risk,  he  had  been  properly  warned ;  and 
in  consideration  of  the  payment  of  two  hun- 
dred dollars  had  signed  away  the  right  to  go 
to  the  courts. 

Winter  had  come  upon  Good  Will,  and 
with  it  bitter,  biting  cold.  The  "  Lady  "  with 
the  millions  had  gone  neither  to  Florida  nor 
Lakewood  nor  California.  She  stayed  in 
Good  Will  just  because  bitter  winter  had  come 
and  the  miners  were  there,  and  Christmas 
was  near — the  season  of  peace  and  good- 
will. 

Every  one  was  talking  about  the  "  Lady's  " 
Christmas.  As  far  as  one  could  see  from  the 
hilltop  where  her  house  stood,  over  many  a 
mile  of  wrecked  landscape,  past  huge  break- 
ers and  mountains  of  culm  which  marked  the 
location  of  the  "  patches,"  they  talked  of  the 
"  Lady's  "  Christmas.   For  two  weeks  she  had 


24  The  BROKEN  WALL 

been  in  the  city  buying,  buying,  buying,  for 
the  miners'  children.  Toys  and  candies, 
stockings,  caps,  and  mittens,  and  all  the 
things  that  delight  the  little  ones.  Four 
thousand  children  were  on  her  list  and  on 
her  heart,  and  all  of  these  were  waiting  for 
the  "  Lady's  "  Christmas. 

At  last  it  came  with  the  jingle  of  bells  and 
the  lighted  Christmas  trees.  Every  school- 
house  and  every  church  in  every  "  patch " 
for  miles  around  Good  Will  had  a  Christmas 
tree  laden  by  the  "  Lady's  "  Christmas  gifts. 
The  children  came,  and  when  they  went  back 
to  the  little  huts  they  were  gladder  than  they 
had  been  all  the  year.  The  biggest  tree  was 
in  the  "  Lady's  "  house,  and  thither  the  chil- 
dren of  Good  Will  came,  while  their  mothers 
and  fathers  looked  in  at  the  windows  ;  for  the 
room  was  not  large  enough  for  all. 

Through  the  drifting  snow  they  led  Joseph, 
the  blind  miner,  to  see  the  Christmas  tree. 
A  blind  man  to  see  the  Christmas  tree  !  As 
he  came  in,  the  children  made  room  for  him, 
and  he  was  led  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  tree 
under  the  radiance  of  the  light  which  he 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  25 

could  not  see.  Then  he  felt  the  hand  of  the 
"  Lady  "  over  his  eyes. 

"Boly?"  (Does  it  hurt?)  she  asked; 
Joseph  broke  into  bitter  lamentations. 

"  Boly  /    Boly  !    Boly  ! ' ' 

And  she  said  in  that  quiet  and  solemn 
voice  of  hers  which  sounded  like  hushed 
organ  tones,  "  Dobre  I  Dobre  /  Dobre/" 
and  put  a  paper  into  his  hand.  The  Greek 
Catholic  priest  who  stood  by  took  the  paper 
and  read  it — translating  it  for  Joseph. 

"  I  wish  I  could  give  you  your  sight  for  a 
Christmas  gift,  but  I  cannot  perform  miracles  ; 

so  I  give  you  one  thousand  dollars  " 

Then  Joseph  cried,  hysterically  :  "  Dobre  I 
Dobre  I "    But  the  priest  stopped  him. 

"  A  ticket  to  your  home  in  Hungary  " 

"  Dobre  !  Dobre  /"  Joseph  cried,  and  again 
the  priest  checked  him. 

"  And  ten  dollars  a  month  until  the  thou- 
sand dollars  begin  to  bear  sufficient  inter- 
est." 

Then  Joseph  fell  on  his  face  and  stretched 
his  hands  out  towards  the  warmth  where  he 
knew  the  tree  was  and  where  the  "  Lady  " 


26 


The  BROKEN  WALL 


must  be,  and,  pressing  his  hands  to  his  heart, 
cried : 

"  Lady  I  Boly  /  Boly  /  "  (meaning  that  his 
heart  hurt  from  joy).  And  the  "  Lady,"  tak- 
ing his  rough  hands  in  hers,  said  :  "  Dobre  ! 
Dobre!  Dobre!" 

*  *  *  *  * 

Again  I  am  wishing  for  the  poet's  pen  to 
tell  what  I  have  seen  and  felt,  and  again  I 
write  extraordinary  facts  in  an  ordinary  way. 
This  time  I  write  of  defeated  soldiers  return- 
ing home  after  the  battle.  As  they  go  to  their 
ship  in  the  gray  morning,  the  city  through 
which  they  pass  is  as  unconscious  of  their 
going  as  it  was  of  their  coming. 

Thousands  of  leagues  away  are  the  soldiers' 
mothers  who  bore  them  in  pain,  nourished 
them  with  the  fruit  of  hard  toil,  and  clothed 
them  in  the  woof  of  their  own  unremitting 
industry.  Mothers,  wives,  and  children 
parted  from  them  in  tears  wiped  from  their 
weather-beaten  cheeks  by  the  gentle  touch 
of  hope. 

These  soldiers  came  to  our  shores  deter- 
mined to  fight  and  win.    They  did  not  ask  : 


The  LAD  Y  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  27 

"  Is  the  day  long  or  short  ?  "  They  did  not 
fear  the  dark  and  damp  of  the  mine  or  the 
scorching  fires  of  belching  furnaces.  They 
obeyed  the  harsh  command  of  their  captains, 
stolidly  facing  danger  and  death. 

The  battle  of  the  year  is  over — 30,000  and 
more  were  slain ;  while  over  ten  times  that 
number  were  wounded  and  disabled. 

The  vast  majority  of  those  who  gave  life 
and  health  for  a  pittance  of  wage  are  these 
returning  wanderers  who  were  born,  bred, 
and  nourished  under  alien  skies,  and  whose 
names  cannot  be  pronounced  by  our  un- 
skilled tongues. 

It  is  of  these  survivors  who  are  going  home 
that  I  wish  to  write.  In  broken  ranks  and 
small  companies  they  march,  led  by  a  man 
whose  interest  in  them  is  measured  by  the 
number  of  dollars  in  their  pockets.  A  piti- 
able sight  are  the  vanquished  ones  ;  hobbling 
on  wooden  legs,  swinging  loose  coat  sleeves, 
breathing  the  damp  air  with  a  wheeze  which 
speaks  all  too  plainly  of  lungs  impaired. 
And,  most  pathetic  of  all,  carefully  feeling 
their  way  through  the  never-changing  dark- 


28  The  BROKEN  WALL 


ness,  are  those  whose  eyes  were  given  in  the 
battle — that  we  might  see  the  more. 

Among  all  these  fifteen  hundred  who  have 
given  strength,  health,  limbs,  and  eyes  to 
society,  only  one  leaves  this  country  with  a 
reward,  and  a  friend  whose  solicitude  reaches 
to  the  ship  and  across  the  ocean  to  the  very 
village  from  which  he  came. 

No,  the  "  Lady  "  cannot  give  him  back  his 
eyes,  and  what  a  pity  that  she  cannot !  A 
great,  strong  fellow  he  is,  this  Joseph  Polyak. 
His  face  almost  handsome,  now  that  the 
veil  of  blindness  hangs  over  it.  His  mus- 
cular body  is  clothed  from  head  to  foot  in 
the  best  new  garments,  all  a  gift  from  the 
"  Lady  " — besides  the  money  and  the  pen- 
sion. 

To  my  inquiry  as  to  his  well-being  he 
answered  with  a  pathetic  shrug  of  his  shoul- 
ders:  "  Dobre,  Dobre!  "  Then  he  told  me 
again  and  again  what  the  "  Lady "  had 
done  for  him.  Reverently  he  raised  his 
hand  towards  Heaven,  as  if  to  invoke  the 
Deity. 

"If  I  were  the  Pope,"  he  said,  "I  would 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  29 

make  her  a  saint."  To  his  sightless  eyes 
I  am  sure  she  wears  a  halo — and  that  is 
enough. 

The  steamship  company  treats  the  return- 
ing immigrants  with  the  same  scant  courtesy 
with  which  it  treated  them  when  they  came. 
In  a  long,  damp  shed  fifteen  hundred  of  them 
waited,  with  no  place  to  warm  themselves 
or  rest  their  weary  feet.  They  were  driven 
rudely  and  harshly  up  the  gangplank  and 
their  tickets  torn  from  their  hands.  There 
was  no  one  to  relieve  them  of  their  bags 
and  bundles,  although  above  them  the  cabin 
passengers,  who  are  not  so  profitable  to 
the  company,  walked  on  soft  rugs  and 
breathed  perfume  laden  air.  Courteous 
officers  watched  over  them  and  directed 
them  in  civil  phrases,  while  below,  fifteen 
hundred  men  who  had  toiled  and  suffered 
to  make  the  holiday  in  the  cabin  possible, 
were  being  crowded  like  cattle  into  the 
steerage.  Will  the  cabin  realize  this  as  it 
looks  down  upon  those  crowds — as  it  sees 
the  pale  faces,  flapping  sleeves,  and  empty 
eye  sockets  ?    Or  will  it  look  with  suspicion 


30  The  BROKEN  WALL 

upon  them  and  call  them  a  menace  and  a 
problem  ? 

A  steward  had  to  be  bribed  to  be  civil  to 
this  blind  man,  for  the  steamship  company 
does  not  encourage  civilities  to  its  best  pay- 
ing human  freight.  Joseph  Polyak  did  not 
complain  ;  all  he  wanted  beside  what  he  al- 
ready had  was  a  little  English  book,  so  that 
he  could  "teach  his  children  the  language  of 
the  *  Lady.'  " 

And  now  he  is  ready  for  the  long  voyage 
with  the  little  book  clasped  to  his  breast.  He 
will  sail  along  rugged  coasts,  through  stormy 
and  peaceful  seas,  by  glorious  islands  to 
strange  harbours ;  but  he  will  see  nothing  of 
the  beauty  of  earth  or  sea.  When  he  lands, 
he  will  be  guided  by  trusted  hands  to  the 
very  village  from  which  he  came,  and  there 
his  wife  and  children  will  be  waiting  for  him  ; 
but  he  will  not  see  them.  His  rough,  toil- 
worn  fingers  will  move  over  their  faces,  and 
by  touch  alone  will  he  know  how  the  little 
ones  have  grown.  The  wife  will  weep  as  she 
looks  into  his  sightless  face  and  she  will  cry 
"  Boly  1  Boly ! "  as  if  her  heart  would  break. 


The  LADY  of  The  GOOD  WILL  MINES  31 

But  he  will  say,  with  a  smile  almost  seraphic, 
"  Dobre  I  Dobre  1  "  and  that  night,  when  upon 
their  knees  they  ask  the  intercession  of  their 
saints,  I  am  quite  sure  they  will  pray  for  the 
"  Lady  "  of  the  Good  Will  Mines. 


II 


Committing  a  Matrimo?iy 


OWER  TOWN,  where  I  lived  for 


some  years  as  a  pastor,  was  infested 


by  ragmen.  Hardly  had  one  of  them 
called  out  his  doleful  and  somewhat  inquiring 
"Rags?  Rags?"  till  another  made  his  ap- 
pearance and  more  confidently  called  out : 
"  Rags,  Rags  !  " 

"  Where  the  carcass  is  there  the  eagles  are 
gathered  together." 

Where  there  are  rags  there  are  ragmen. 
They  throve  in  Lower  Town,  and  never  in- 
quired of  The  Hill  for  "  rags — rags." 

One  of  them  grew  to  be  quite  a  familiar 
figure  at  the  parsonage,  because  the  minis- 
ter's extravagant  wife,  instead  of  taking  the 
few  pennies  for  her  rags,  gave  them  to  Jakey, 
the  black-eyed  son  of  the  Jewish  ragman. 
Nearly  every  day  he  would  stop  his  raggy 
horse  in  front  of  the  parsonage,  and  smiling 
through  his  small  gray  eyes  at  the  study 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  33 

window,  would  call  out,  "  Haf  you  gots  any 
rags  for  sell  ?  " 

I  would  often  chat  with  him  about  the  Old 
Country,  about  the  rag  business,  and  some- 
times we  would  even  venture  upon  the  deli- 
cate subject  of  Theology.  One  morning, 
hearing  a  furious  ring  at  the  door,  I  hastened 
to  open  it  and  was  confronted  by  Isaac 
Abramowitz,  the  ragman,  dressed  in  his  best. 
Without  wasting  time  in  the  usual  formalities, 
Isaac  stated  his  errand  : 

"  Mr.  Breacher,  I  vant  you  to  gome  to  mine 
house  und  gommit  a  matrimony." 

"Do  what?"  I  asked. 

"  Gommit  a  matrimony,  make  a  marriage," 
was  the  reply. 

"  But,  Mr.  Abramowitz,  why  do  you  ask 
me  to  marry  any  one  at  your  house  ?  " 

"  Veil,  Mr.  Breacher,  I  dells  you  how  it  iss. 
You  see  my  niece  vot  lifs  ofer  me,  she  vails 
in  lof  mit  Mike  Flannagan,  vot  lifs  under  me, 
und  her  parents  vot  iss  fery  shtrict  Jews,  dey 
don't  vant  it ;  put  dey  bote  zay  dey  must 
marry,  und  so  dey  gets  married  at  my  house. 
She  don't  vant  no  briest,  und  he  don't  vant 


34  The  BROKEN  WALL 

no  rabbi  to  gommit  de  vedding,  und  dey  asks 
you  to  gome  for  a  gombromise.  Vill  you  ? 
Mike  vill  bay  you  veil,  und  you  must  gome 
right  avay,  because  dey  is  vaiting." 

I  hastily  donned  my  "  wedding  garments," 
and  together  we  wended  our  way  towards 
one  of  the  many  tenement  houses  of  Lower 
Town.  The  halls  and  stairway  were  dirty, 
but  upon  reaching  the  third  floor  signs  of 
hard  scrubbing  were  visible.  The  very  air  felt 
clean,  although  it  was  permeated  by  kitchen 
odours. 

The  door  was  opened  by  Mrs.  Abramowitz, 
a  matronly  looking  woman  in  black  satin, 
with  numerous  gold  ornaments,  and  showing 
no  signs  of  the  rag  business,  I  thought.  The 
room  was  filled  to  overflowing  by  men, 
women  and  children.  "  Shades  of  Abraham 
and  St.  Patrick  ! "  I  muttered  as  my  eyes  fell 
on  the  motley  crowd  of  all  tribes  and  tongues, 
among  which,  however,  Irish  and  Hebrew 
predominated. 

The  bride-to-be,  dark-haired  and  dark-eyed, 
a  typical  daughter  of  Israel,  stood  in  the 
centre  of  the  room,  and  clinging  to  her  was 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  35 

Mike  Flannagan,  a  red-haired,  snub-nosed, 
freckled  Irishman.  A  stranger  pair  had  cer- 
tainly never  approached  Hymen's  altar. 

"  Here  is  de  breacher,  Rebekah,"  called  out 
Mr.  Abramowitz,  addressing  the  bride-elect. 

She  came  forward,  saying,  "  I  am  glad 
you  came.  I  was  afraid  you  wouldn't  want 
to  marry  us." 

"  Why  not  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Well,  because  we  are  not  of  your  faith." 

"  That  makes  no  difference  to  me,"  I  said, 
"  but  I  hope  that  you  will  not  regret  marry- 
ing Mike.  You  are  so  unlike  in  faith  and  in 
blood,  you  were  brought  up  so  differently, 
and  I  fear  " 

"  But  I  love  him,  Mr.  Pastor,  and  I  will 
risk  everything.  The  only  thing  that  worries 
me  is  that  father  and  mother  will  not  give 
their  consent.  Would  you  mind  going  up  to 
see  them  before  you  marry  us  ?" 

I  gladly  consented  and,  followed  by  the 
gaping  crowd,  I  climbed  another  flight  of 
stairs  to  a  room  from  which  came  mournful 
cries  and  groans,  as  of  some  one  weeping 
over  the  dead. 


36  The  BROKEN  WALL 

Opening  the  door,  a  strange  contrast  to 
the  festive  wedding  guests  presented  itself. 
Sitting  upon  the  floor  in  torn  garments  were 
the  two  old  people.  He,  gray-bearded  and 
parchment-skinned,  the  furrows  of  sorrow 
plowed  deeply  upon  forehead  and  cheeks. 
His  eyes  were  glowing.  The  fire  in  them 
was  like  the  gleam  of  steel,  trying  to  hold 
back  the  tears.  There  were  ashes  upon  his 
head,  and  the  spirit  of  Jeremiah  seemed  to 
have  taken  flesh  again,  to  weep  out  his  lam- 
entations. His  wife  seemed  older  than  he. 
Her  hair  was  unkempt,  her  dress  in  tatters,  and 
she  bowed  to  the  ground,  weeping  and  wail- 
ing sore. 

"  They  are  sitting  Sc/iivit/i,"  whispered  Re- 
bekah  to  me. 

When  a  Jew  dies,  his  family  spends  the  first 
seven  days  mourning,  sitting  upon  the  floor  in 
sackcloth  and  ashes.  When  Rebekah  married 
Mike  she  would  be  dead  to  her  parents,  so 
they  had  already  begun  the  days  of  mourning. 

I  approached  the  old  couple,  but  they  took 
no  notice  of  my  greeting  until  Isaac  Abram- 
owitz  said  : 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  37 

"  That  is  de  breacher." 

They  looked  up  and  eyeing  me  critically 
said  as  if  relieved,  "  He  looks  not  like  a  Ga- 
loch  "  (priest). 

"  I  am  not  a  priest ;  I  am  a  minister, 
and  I  came  to  ask  you  to  give  your  con- 
sent and  blessing  to  your  daughter's  mar- 
riage." 

"  Ve  gots  no  daughter,"  they  replied  in 
broken  English. 

"  She  is  die  to  uns,  a  Goy  (Christian)  she 
vill  marry,  bork  she  vill  eat,  und  haf  a  gross 
on  de  vail." 

I  clasped  the  old  man's  withered  hand  as  J 
asked,  "Is  Rebekah  your  only  child?" 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  four  ve  had,  und  tree  in 
Russia  ve  buried." 

"And  do  you  wish  to  bury  this  one  too?" 
I  asked. 

"  Gott  knows  ve  don't,  Mr.  Minisder.  Ve 
lof  her,  our  all  she  is  und  she  is  a  good 
daughter  to  uns,  aber  it  iss  against  our 
religion  for  her  a  Goy  to  marry,  und  she 
must  pe  die  to  uns.  De  Goys  hates  und  gills 
de  Jews." 


38  The  BROKEN  WALL 

At  this  Isaac  Abramowitz  stepped  forward 
and  said : 

"  Now  I  knows  dat  issn't  zo.  Gristians 
don't  hates  und  gills  de  Jews  in  dis  gountry. 
Dis  minister,  he  dalks  to  me  every  day  ven  I 
bass  his  house,  und  my  Jakey,  yes,  my 
Jakey,  he  goes  to  his  Zunday-zgool.  Here, 
Jakey,  gome  here.  I  vill  show  you  vat  dey 
learn  dis  kid  in  Gristian  Zunday-zgool." 

In  response  to  this  invitation,  Jakey 
wrapped  himself  into  his  mother's  skirts  like 
fruit  into  an  omelet,  and  had  to  be  coaxed 
out  by  a  penny. 

"  Now,  Jakey,  I  vants  you  to  dell  dese 
beeples  vat  you  learned  in  Zunday-zgool. 
Who  lofs  you,  Jakey?  Now,  Jakey,  dell  de 
beeples  who  lofs  you?" 

Jakey,  sucking  his  dirty  finger,  was  poked 
in  the  ribs,  as  once  more  his  father  asked, 
"Jakey,  who  lofs  you?" 

"Jesus  lofs  me,"  he  piped  up,  as  a  beam- 
ing smile  spread  over  the  face  of  his  father. 

"  You  see  ?  he  says  Jesus  lofs  him,  a  boor 
Jewish  poy,  vat  gets  half  gilled  in  de  old 
goundry  py  Gristians.    Dey  learns  him  here 


COMMITTING  a  MA  TRIMONY  39 

dat  Jesus  lofs  him,  und  his  deacher  gives 
him  a  pook  vot  vas  vorth  wholesale  dwendy- 
dree  zends,  vor  a  brize  vor  learning  de 
Multitudes.  Now,  Mr.  Breacher,  you  asks 
him  zomedings." 

Out  of  deference  to  their  Jewish  feelings  I 
asked,  "  Who  was  the  first  man,  Jakey  ?" 

"Now,  Jakey,"  said  his  father.  "Jakey, 
buts  dat  finger  out  of  your  mouds,  und  dells 
de  breacher  who  vas  de  virst  man." 

"Now,  Jakey,"  I  asked  again,  "who  was 
the  first  man?"  and  Jakey,  rising  to  the  oc- 
casion, shouted : 

"  De  first  man  vas  George  Vashington  ! " 

The  sentiment  of  the  audience  was  divided 
as  to  the  correctness  of  this  answer,  but  the 
old  man  turned  to  me  and  said  : 

"  Do  you  deach  in  your  church  dat  Jesus 
lofs  de  Jews?" 

"Yes  indeed.  Jesus  Himself  was  a  Jew, 
and  He  loved  them  and  taught  us  to  love 
them." 

"  Gots  all  de  Gristians  de  same  Jesus  ? " 
again  queried  the  old  man. 
"Yes  indeed,  they  have." 


40  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  Dose  in  Russia  too  ?  " 

"Y-es,"  I  replied  hesitatingly, 

"Veil,  vy  do  de  Gristians  de  Jews  vrom 
dere  Vaterland  drive  out?  Vy  gills  dey 
dem?" 

"I  don't  know,"  I  said.  "  But  tell  me,  has 
any  Christian  here  in  this  country  ever 
robbed  you?  Has  any  one  tried  to  drive 
you  out?    Tell  me." 

"  Ach  yes  !  De  kinder  trow  stones  on  me 
und  calls  me  Sheeney." 

I  was  unable  to  reply,  for  it  was  only  too 
true.  Here,  also,  the  persecution  had  begun 
although  it  was  yet  in  its  infancy. 

Rebekah,  coming  forward  at  this  point, 
relieved  my  confusion  as  she  cried  : 

"  Father  leben,  dear  father,  bless  me,  bless 
me !  I  will  always  be  your  daughter,  and 
always  be  true  to  our  faith  even  though  I 
marry  a  Christian." 

The  mother,  whose  heart  had  softened 
while  she  listened,  now  threw  herself  at  her 
husband's  feet  and  also  implored  him  to 
bless  their  child.  The  struggle  was  great. 
Hesitating,  he  said  : 


COMMITTING  a  MA  TRIMONY    4 1 

"  Mr.  Bastor,  vill  you  so  much  off  our  re- 
ligion gif  into  de  vedding  den  you  can? 
You  know  it  iss  py  uns  de  barents  go  around 
de  challa  (bride)  dree  dimes  vile  de  rabbi 
reading  iss,  und  de  chosen  (groom)  must  a 
glass  break  under  his  veet  pefore  de  zeri- 
monials  ofer  iss." 

I  gladly  consented  to  this  novel  innovation ; 
Irish  neighbours  and  Jewish  friends  poured 
in  from  the  hall  where  they  had  been  anx- 
iously awaiting  developments,  and  formed  a 
curious  circle  around  the  bridal  party.  I 
called  Mike  aside,  and  said  to  him : 

"  Mike,  these  people  are  going  to  give  you 
their  blessing;  aren't  you  glad  of  it?" 

Mike  shrugged  his  shoulders  as  if  it  meant 
little  or  nothing  to  him.  So  I  called  to  his 
mind  the  fact  that  he  was  to  marry  into  a 
fine  family. 

"Your  rivirence,"  was  his  reply,  "  Oi 
thought  they  was  ragpickers." 

"  Yes,  but  they  are  also  the  relatives  of  the 
saints  and  apostles  whom  you  revere." 

Mike's  astonishment  was  great.  "  Why  Oi 
thought  they  was  Sheeneys  1 " 


42  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  Nevertheless,"  I  said,  "  they  are  of  the 
blood  of  the  apostles  and  saints." 

What  seemed  to  restore  to  Mike's  saints 
the  lustre  of  their  tarnished  halos  was  the 
fact  that  the  relationship  existed  so  long  ago. 

"  Mike,"  I  said  again,  looking  him  straight 
in  the  eye,  "  you  drink." 

"  Yis,  your  rivirence,  occasionally  a  dhrap, 
but  it's  a  moighty  big  one." 

"  Mike,"  I  resumed,  "  I  want  you  to  look 
at  these  old  people  whose  daughter  you  are 
taking  from  them,  almost  breaking  their 
hearts.  If  you  should  ill-treat  her,  it  would 
kill  them.  Your  enemy,  Mike,  is  drink,  and 
I  want  you  to  pledge  to-day,  before  God, 
that  you  will  not  touch  another  drop  of 
liquor  as  long  as  you  live,  God  helping  you." 

"  Oi  promise,"  said  Mike  with  earnest  em- 
phasis. 

"I  will  tell  you,"  I  went  on,  "how  I  want 
you  to  take  your  pledge.  These  people 
have  a  custom  that  the  groom  must  break  a 
glass  under  his  feet  before  the  wedding  cere- 
mony is  over.  Whatever  it  means  to  them, 
it  will  mean  to  you,  and  to  your  bride,  and 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  43 

to  God  that  you  will  never  drink  another 
drop." 

"  Oi'll  do  it  1 "  replied  Mike,  pulling  a  pint 
bottle  of  whiskey  from  his  hip  pocket,  "  and 
this  be  the  bottle  Oi'll  break,  and  niver 
anither  shall  Oi  take  to  me  lips,  so  help  me 
God  and  the  Howly  Vargin  1  " 

The  bride  and  groom  now  took  their 
places,  while  the  old  couple  walked  around 
them  three  times,  he  reverently  repeating 
some  prayers.  Then  the  young  people  with 
clasped  hands  plighted  one  another  their  troth, 
"  for  better,  for  worse,  for  richer,  for  poorer." 

Before  offering  a  prayer,  I  took  Mike's 
bottle  and  placing  it  under  his  foot,  said  : 

"Friends  and  neighbours,  it  is  a  custom 
among  the  Jews  for  the  groom  to  break  a 
glass  under  his  feet  before  he  is  declared  a 
husband.  It  is  a  custom  which  we,  in  Lower 
Town,  might  well  borrow.  I  have  married 
some  of  you  who  are  here.  I  have  gone  into 
and  out  of  nearly  every  house  in  Lower 
Town,  and  there  is  hardly  one  where  drink 
has  not  brought  poverty  or  death.  Mike 
Flannagan,  you  promise  here,  before  God 


44  The  BROKEN  WALL 

and  these  witnesses,  that  as  long  as  you  live 
you  will  not  taste  strong  drink  ?  " 

And  Mike  Flannagan,  with  the  mighty 
power  of  his  heavy  foot,  came  down  upon 
his  whiskey  bottle  so  that  the  windows 
rattled  and  a  vase  tumbled  from  a  shelf  as 
he  answered  in  stentorian  tones  : 

"  Oi'll  niver  taste  the  bastely  stuff,  so  help 
me  God  and  the  Howly  Vargin." 

A  strong  odour  of  whiskey  permeated  the 
room,  and  doubtless  many  a  man  quoted  to 
himself,  "  For  what  purpose  is  this  waste?" 

But  the  minister,  clasping  the  hands  of 
Mike  and  Rebekah,  most  solemnly  pro- 
nounced them  husband  and  wife,  "  In  the 
name  of  the  Father  and  of  the  Son,  and  of 
the  Holy  Ghost.  Amen." 

Spring  came  reluctantly  and  without  rap- 
ture to  Lower  Town.  It  lingered  on  The 
Hill,  warmed  its  sloping  lawns,  wakened 
the  crocuses  and  welcomed  the  robins. 
Then  grudgingly  it  crept  down  to  where 
only  dandelions  waited  to  be  resurrected, 
where  the  leaf-buds  on  scraggy  trees  were 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  45 

thick  from  railroad  soot,  and  where  clanging 
noises  of  banging  cars  and  grinding  wheels 
frightened  the  robins  away,  leaving  the 
sparrows  in  undisturbed  possession  of  the 
field. 

Though  spring  itself  came  so  slowly,  and 
many  a  time  seemed  not  to  come  until 
grown  to  summer,  we  knew  when  Easter 
came,  for  people  carried  flowers  to  the  ceme- 
tery of  the  great  city  which  was  near  us  and 
there  were  always  babies  to  baptize  on  that 
day.  Looking  from  my  window  on  Easter 
morning,  I  saw  the  red  head  of  Mike  Flanna- 
gan,  grown  more  familiar  since  his  wedding  ; 
for  Rebekah  came  to  church  occasionally  on 
Sunday  evening,  and  Mike  came  with  her. 

That  Easter  morning,  his  cheery  face  had 
an  unusual  smile  upon  it ;  the  sort  of  smile 
which  vibrates  between  laughter  and  tears 
and  may  become  either  at  any  time.  There 
were  many  steps  to  the  parsonage  door,  and 
he  leaped  them  as  if  they  were  the  roofs  of  the 
fast  moving  freight  cars  to  which  he  was  ac- 
customed. Then  came  a  nervous  pull  at  the 
bell  and  before  I  reached  the  door,  another 


46  The  BROKEN  WALL 

peal ;  although  I  am  sure  he  heard  my 
hastening  footsteps.  "Your  rivirence!"  he 
cried  breathlessly. 

"What's  the  matter,  Mike?"  half  guess- 
ing what  his  errand  was. 

"  We've  got  a  piece  of  freight  at  our  house, 
your  rivirence,  came  on  the  6  : 40  Merchant's 
Dispatch.  It's  a  by,  your  rivirence,  and 
from  the  way  he's  yelling,  Oi'll  not  need  the 
call-by  to  git  me  out  av  me  bed,  whin  there's 
a  train  to  be  pulled  out.  Foinest  looking 
chap  you  iver  seen ;  looks  something  loike 
me. 

I  shook  his  rough  hand,  which  gripped 
mine  like  a  vise  as  I  congratulated  him. 
"  Well,  your  rivirence,  you've  helped  in  the 
damage  and  you've  mixed  us  up  till  Oi  don't 
know  whether  Oi'm  a  Sheeney — Oi  mean  a 
Jew  " — he  corrected  himself — "or  a  real,  live 
Oirishman,  who  was  baptized  into  the  Howly 
Catholic  Church  in  the  county  of  Tipperary, 
Oireland. 

"  Rebekah,  she  feels  mixed  up,  too — and 
the  baby !  the  saints  have  mercy  on  it  I  it's 
mixed  up  worse  yit.     You've  just  got  to 


COMMITTING  a  MA  TRIMONY  47 

straighten  us  all  out  and  Oi  guess  you'd  better 
begin  at  the  baby  and  baptize  him  your  way. 
Do  you  think  it  would  hold,  up  there,  if 
something  should  happen  to  the  little 
chap  ?  " 

Giving  him  all  the  assurance  I  could,  I 
promised  to  come  that  afternoon  at  three 
o'clock  to  baptize  the  baby. 

Rebekah  and  Mike  lived  on  Mt.  Airy 
Street,  a  sandy  slope,  from  the  top  of  which 
one  could  look  down  upon  a  fast  growing 
Ghetto  on  one  side  and  an  overgrown  Irish 
settlement  on  the  other.  A  small  house  of 
three  rooms  was  the  birthplace  of  this  new 
resident  of  Lower  Town ;  it  was  a  mixed  home 
in  many  respects.  The  parlour  floor  was 
covered  by  a  rather  gaudy  ingrain  carpet. 
There  were  a  marble-topped  table,  with  a 
red  vase  full  of  paper  flowers,  crayon  por- 
traits of  Rebekah's  parents,  a  huge  Irish 
harp,  the  framework  of  a  floral  piece  once 
given  to  Mike  by  the  "  Hibernian  Lodge," 
and  an  enlarged  picture  of  himself  in  the 
uniform  of  the  same  fraternity. 

Jewish  and  Irish  relatives  had  come  to  the 


48  The  BROKEN  WALL 

baptism,  and  surrounded  the  cradle  where 
the  baby  itself  lay,  a  mixed  bundle  of  most 
peculiar  possibilities. 

Its  eyes  were  large  and  dark  and  showed 
the  peculiar  Semitic  lustre ;  its  nose  was 
scarcely  visible  and  promised  to  be  Irish  ;  its 
fluffy  hair — well,  Mike  said  it  would  be  blond 
and  I  did  not  think  it  wise  to  voice  my  con- 
victions. 

While  I  was  looking  at  the  baby  and 
praising  its  varied  charms,  my  coat  was 
vigorously  pulled.  I  turned  and  was  con- 
fronted by  one  of  Rebekah's  relatives.  He 
had  the  reputation  of  a  man  versed  in  the  law 
and  officiated  as  a  rabbi  on  the  great  holy 
days,  when  religion  came  to  busy  Israel  with 
a  rush,  and  extra  help  had  to  be  employed. 

"  Mr.  Breacher,"  he  began,  "  dis  baby  is  a 
Jew,  und  you  can't  un-Jew  him." 

"How  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"Veil,  you  see,  a  baby,  according  to  our 
law,  comes  down  from  de  modder,  und  he  is 
a  Jew  if  de  modder  is  a  Jew,  even  if  de  fod- 
der is  a  Goy — I  mean  a  Gristian  " — he  cor- 
rected himself. 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  49 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  his  parents  have  asked  me 
to  baptize  him  and  of  course  you  can't  pre- 
vent my  doing  it." 

"  I  don't  vant  to  make  no  fuss  ;  your  little 
vater  von't  do  much  damatge — but  he  has  to 
get  a  Jewish  name — und  according  to  our 
custom,  ve  gif  de  child  de  name  of  his  nearest 
relative  vat  vas  dead. 

"  His  grandfodder,  may  he  rest  in  peace, 
vas  named  Moses,  und  you  must  name  de 
baby  Moses." 

Moses  Flannagan !  When  the  Irish  heard 
that  proposal,  they  laughed  as  only  the  Irish 
know  how  to  laugh. 

"His  name  must  be  Patrick! — The  kid's 
Irish  !  Patrick  Flannagan  1 "  they  shouted 
with  one  accord.  The  Jews  cried  "  Moses  ! " 
and  the  Irish  cried  "  Patrick !  "  As  they  grew 
more  and  more  excited  I  felt  myself  in  the 
centre  of  a  veritable  cyclone.  Puzzled,  I  held 
the  baptismal  bowl,  when  suddenly  an  inspi- 
ration came  to  me,  as  if  straight  from  Heaven. 

"Friends  and  neighbours,"  I  said,  "this 
baby  is  the  child  of  two  races  and  of  two 
faiths.    We  must  not  begin  to  quarrel  over 


50  The  BROKEN  WALL 

its  name.  May  I  ask  the  privilege  of  naming 
it?"  For  answer,  the  Jews  again  cried  for 
Moses  and  the  Irish  for  Patrick,  while  the 
baby  howled  lustily.  Then  Mike,  taking  it 
in  his  arms,  stepped  before  me. 

"  Have  it  your  way,  your  rivirence,"  he 
said.  Rebekah,  from  her  couch,  nodded 
approval,  and  the  ceremony  began. 

I  pledged  them  both  to  bring  up  their  child 
in  the  fear  of  God  and  according  to  His  law. 
As  my  hand  touched  the  baby's  forehead,  the 
Irish  called  out  one  more  defiant  "  Patrick  1  " 
and  the  Jews  hurled  back  a  hostile  "  Moses  1" 
while  I,  taking  a  syllable  of  each  name,  bap- 
tized the  baby — Pat-mos. 

The  ceremony  thus  safe  over,  they  passed 
refreshments;  candy,  crackers  and  wine.  The 
Jews  partook  freely  of  the  sweets,  refusing  the 
wine.  Then  there  were  toasts  to  the  parents 
and  to  the  baby,  after  which  the  preacher  was 
asked  to  say  a  word,  and  this  is  what  he  said : 

"  My  dear  friends, — Years  and  years  ago, 
an  old  Jew  whose  name  was  John  stood 
upon  an  island  named  Patmos.  That  is  the 
name  we  have  given  to  Mike's  and  Rebekah's 


COMMITTING  a  MA  TRIMONY    5 1 

baby.  This  Jew  was  a  Christian,  and  he 
was  a  Christian,  not  because  he  was  born 
into  the  church,  but  because  he  followed 
the  man  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  also  was  a 
Jew. 

"You  Irish  and  we  Americans,  too,  be- 
lieve that  all  the  saints  and  apostles  were 
Catholics  or  Presbyterians  or  Methodists, 
with  the  exception  of  Judas ;  of  course  you 
all  know  that  Judas  was  a  Jew.  Let  me 
remind  you  that  so  were  all  the  apostles. 

"  This  John  was  very  old  and  lived  long 
after  his  Master  had  gone  to  Heaven,  and  on 
this  island  of  Patmos  he  had  a  vision.  He 
wrote  down  what  he  heard  and  saw,  and  sent 
it  to  the  churches  in  which  Jews  and  Gentiles 
lived  together  and  learned  to  love  one  an- 
other.   This  is  what  he  wrote  : 

" '  I,  John,  who  also  am  your  brother  and 
companion  in  tribulation  and  in  the  kingdom 
and  patience  of  Jesus  Christ,  was  in  the  isle 
which  is  called  Patmos,  for  the  word  of  God 
and  for  the  testimony  of  Jesus  Christ.' 

"You  Irish  now  have  a  relative  who  is  part 
Jew  and  part  Gentile,  but  long  ago,  a  Jew 


52 


The  BROKEN  WALL 


wrote  to  you  as  a  brother  and  companion  and 
you  have  forgotten  that. 

"  You  Jews — a  Jew,  a  man  of  your  own 
flesh  and  blood,  stood  on  the  island  which 
was  called  Patmos,  and  declared  himself  a 
brother  to  the  whole  human  race,  regardless 
of  its  origin.  You  also  have  forgotten  that 
from  your  race  sprang  the  great  Brother  of 
humanity.  Remember  that  now  you  have  a 
relative  according  to  the  flesh,  half  Gentile — 
half  Jew. 

"  I  hope  and  pray  that  this  little,  mixed 
baby  will  help  us  to  remember  what  we  all 
have  forgotten,  what  neither  the  church  nor 
the  synagogue  has  helped  us  to  practice  ; 
that  we  all  have  one  Father,  one  spiritual 
Lord,  and  one  destiny." 

As  I  stepped  out  upon  the  sandy  hilltop, 
called  Mt.  Airy,  the  chimes  of  the  cathedral 
were  ringing  the  Angelus  and  from  the 
steeple  of  my  church  the  bells  were  calling 
to  the  Christian  Endeavour  meeting. 

The  rough,  north  wind  had  changed,  and 
the  long  deferred  spring  came,  blown  gently 
from  the  south.    Like  the  warm,  soft  touch 


COMMITTING  a  MATRIMONY  53 

of  a  lover's  hand,  I  felt  it  upon  my  cheeks, 
and  as  the  Jews  returned  to  the  Ghetto  and 
the  Irish  went  scattering  in  the  other  direc- 
tion, I  asked  Him  who  directed  the  south 
wind  and  sent  it  to  Jew  and  Gentile  alike — 
"Oh,  Lord,  how  longl" 

I  heard  nothing  in  reply  except  the  words 
of  the  beloved  apostle,  "  I,  John,  who  also 
am  your  brother  and  companion  in  tribula- 
tion and  in  the  kingdom  and  patience  of 
Jesus  Christ." 


/ 


III 


" Hisn,  Mine  and  Ourn" 
rHEN  a  company  begins  to  operate 


pital  also  ;  for  accidents  and  disease  are  grim 
by-products  of  the  business. 

As  a  rule,  the  hospital  is  well  within  the 
stockade  and  is  more  carefully  guarded  than 
the  processes  of  the  chemical  laboratory. 
No  one  but  the  superintending  physician 
knows  its  secrets  and  usually  he  is  a  taciturn, 
close-mouthed  man  ;  for  one  of  the  prime 
requisites  of  his  position  is,  to  keep  his  mouth 
shut,  whether  he  keeps  his  eyes  open  or  not. 

A  cup  of  coffee,  a  big  cigar  and  jovial 
companions  loosened  the  tongue  of  one 
of  them  one  evening,  and  when  he  had 
finished  his  story  every  cigar  was  out  and  a 
heavy  silence  had  settled  over  us.  As  he 
apologized  for  spoiling  our  good  time  he 
said : 


a  large  steel  plant  or  coal  mines  it 
usually  begins  to  operate  its  hos- 


54 


"  HISN,  MINE  and  OURN"  55 

"  It  isn't  all  so  dark  ;  there  are  funny  spots 
in  our  experience.  Just  light  a  fresh  cigar 
and  I'll  tell  you  the  last  one  I  had.  I  hope 
it  will  take  the  curse  off  the  other." 

The  cigars  were  passed,  the  men  sought 
the  proper  level  for  their  feet,  and  the  super- 
intendent of  the  hospital  of  the  Coal  and 

Iron  Company  in  N         began  to  tell  his 

story. 

"  There  is  one  great  difficulty  in  the  man- 
agement of  our  hospital — lack  of  trained 
nurses.  We  have  to  depend  for  the  greater 
part  of  our  nursing  upon  the  miners'  widows, 
to  whom  the  work  in  the  hospital  is  a  sort  of 
pension.  Most  of  them  are  good  motherly 
souls — too  good  in  fact,  and  you  can't  disci- 
pline them.  They'll  be  kissing  the  home- 
sick boys  to  comfort  them  and  the  result  is 
that  we  get  all  sorts  of  epidemics  going.  We 
had  to  pass  a  strict  rule  that  any  nurse  caught 
kissing  a  patient,  whether  suffering  from  a 
contagious  disease  or  not,  would  be  dis- 
charged on  the  spot. 

"  We  had  a  typhoid  fever  epidemic  and 
the  hospital  was  crowded  not  only  by  our 


56  The  BROKEN  WALL 

men,  but  we  had  to  let  them  bring  the  kids, 
for  the  only  way  to  control  the  disease  was 
to  get  them  all  rounded  up. 

"  One  of  these  widows  was  Mrs.  McGinnis. 
Maggie  I  called  her ;  for  I  knew  her  before 
she  was  married.  She  was  our  cook  and 
when  she  left  us  it  was  like  a  funeral.  Mrs. 
McGinnis'  husband  was  the  foreman  in  one  of 
our  mines.  The  poor  fellow  went  to  help  dig 
out  some  of  those  stupid  foreigners  and  he 
and  six  other  brave  Irishmen  'never  drew 
breath  outside  of  purgatory  again,'  to  quote 
Father  O'Shanahan.  I  am  no  authority  on 
the  condition  of  souls  in  the  other  world. 

"  Maggie  just  hated  '  them  Eyetalyuns  and 
Polacks.'  She  never  had  any  particular  love 
for  them  before  her  husband  lost  his  life,  but 
after  that  calamity,  her  hate  grew  fierce. 
'  Doctor,'  she  said  when  I  asked  her  to  help 
at  the  hospital,  '  I'd  give  them  poison  instead 
of  medicine.' 

"  When  I  told  her  that  that  was  just  exactly 
what  I  wanted  her  to  give  them,  she  came. 
We  needed  her  badly,  we  were  just  bulging 
with  cases  ;  we  were  •  full  up '  as  the  hotel 


"  HISN,  MINE  and  O  URN  "  57 

keepers  in  England  tell  you,  when  the  last 
room  in  the  garret  is  let. 

"  I  put  her  in  charge  of  the  women's  and 
children's  ward  and  the  first  day  that  I  asked 
her  to  carry  a  patient  to  the  bath  tub  she  re- 
belled. 

" '  I  thought  you  said  you'd  let  me  give 
them  poison,'  and  she  looked  at  me  with 
her  cold  gray  eyes,  reprovingly.  '  I'd  like  to 
throw  them  all  into  the  river.' 

"  I  told  her  that  was  just  what  I  should 
want  her  to  do.  She  could  not  carry  them 
so  far,  but  we  would  put  them  into  the  ice- 
cold  water  in  the  bath  room.  To  this  she 
consented  with  a  fierce  joy. 

"  The  first  patient  was  a  little  Polish  girl. 
Reluctantly  Maggie  undressed  her,  complain- 
ing of  the  dirt  and  of  getting  sick  at  the 
stomach.  But  when  the  feverish  head  of  the 
child  touched  her  cool  cheek,  all  the  maternal 
spirit  in  Maggie  responded. 

"  '  I  felt  as  if  a  stone  had  dropped  out  of 
my  heart  when  I  felt  that  soft,  hot  cheek,'  she 
said,  and  refused  to  put  the  child  into  the  ice- 
cold  bath  until  I  sternly  commanded  her. 


58  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  '  Poor,  poor  kid,'  she  said ;  'them  Polacks 
ain't  much  on  baths  anyway,  and  now  it's 
freezin'  cold — the  shock  will  kill  her.' 

"  When  the  child  was  taken  out  of  the  bath 
and  her  fever  so  reduced  that  she  realized 
where  she  was,  she  began  to  cry  bitterly  for 
her  mother,  and  Maggie  fretted  and  fumed 
about  those  heartless  Polack  mothers.  '  Catch 
an  Irish  mother  leaving  her  kid  this  way  all 
alone.' 

" '  Her  mother  died,  Maggie.  They  car- 
ried her  out  of  here  yesterday.'  Then  you 
couldn't  get  Maggie  away  from  that  child 
until  I  threatened  to  discharge  her.  When 
I  left  her  for  the  night  I  told  her  some  of  the 
rules  that  govern  the  conduct  of  nurses  in 
the  hospital.  '  And  remember,'  I  said,  '  if 
you  kiss  one  of  the  patients  you'll  be  dis- 
charged on  the  spot.' 

"  I  knew  Maggie's  temper  ;  but  never  be- 
fore had  I  seen  her  quite  so  wrought  up  as 
she  was  that  evening. 

" '  Do  you  expect  I'll  be  kissin'  these  Po- 
lacks or  Eyetalyuns?  Don't  you  know  that 
I  am  Irish  born  and  raised  and  proud  of  it  ? 


/ 


"  HISN,  MINE  and  O  URN  "  59 

Haven't  I  got  reason  enough  to  hate  them 
all  ?  First  they  come  and  take  the  bread 
from  we  Americans,  and  then  they  kill  my 
husband  for  me !  I  says  to  McGinnis  when 
he  went  away  to  rescue  them  Polacks,  "  There 
ain't  no  Americans  in  the  bunch,"  and  then 

McGinnis  '    Here  Maggie  began  to  cry, 

and  knowing  her  capacity  in  that  direction,  I 
left  her. 

"She  was  getting  along  splendidly,  the 
head  nurse  told  me,  and  the  patients  liked 
her  very  much.  One  evening  as  I  was  com- 
ing from  the  lodge  I  thought  I'd  take  a  look 
into  the  hospital.  When  I  came  into  the 
children's  ward  I  saw  Maggie  with  the  little 
Polack  girl  in  her  arms.  The  child  was  call- 
ing piteously :  ' Matushka  !  moya  Matushka  I ' 
and  that  big  Irishwoman  was  crying  like  a 
baby  and  kissing  the  mouth  of  the  sick  child 
in  direct  violation  of  our  rule.  The  head 
nurse  was  with  me  ;  so  there  was  nothing  to 
do  but  discharge  Maggie.  I'd  rather  have 
taken  a  whipping  but  it  had  to  be  done. 

"  Maggie  laid  the  little  girl  in  her  bed  ;  and 
then  she  looked  at  me,  her  gray  eyes  full  of 


6o  The  BROKEN  WALL 


tears.  '  Do  you  think  I  am  made  of  pig-iron 
to  keep  my  hands  and  mouth  from  that  baby, 
crying  for  its  mother,  and  that  mother  dead?' 
She  said  it  angrily  and  fiercely.  Then  plead- 
ingly :  '  Do  you  mean  it,  doctor  ?  You  can't 
mean  it !  I  just  couldn't  stand  it.  That 
baby  needed  a  kiss  more  than  your  poison 
or  your  cold  baths.  The  Lord  have  mercy 
on  this  place  if  you  can't  kiss  a  baby  that 
hasn't  got  no  mother. 

"  '  Its  father  comes  around  here  and  stands 
and  stands  like  a  tombstone,  while  the  child 
cries  for  a  kiss  from  its  mother.  I  don't 
know  any  of  their  gibberish  but  I  can  tell 
what  a  child  wants  and  what  a  child  needs. 

McGinnis  '  and  then  of  course  she  began 

to  cry,  and  I  had  to  push  her  out  of  the  ward 
for  she  was  exciting  the  patients,  and  the 
head  nurse  was  growing  apprehensive. 

"  Last  winter  we  had  another  typhoid 
scare.  They  come  now  about  every  two 
years  and  we  were  again  out  of  nurses.  I 
thought  of  Maggie  and  went  to  her  home. 
In  the  yard  were  some  Polish  children  and 
knowing  her  aversion  to  them  I  was  not  a 


"  HISN,  MINE  and  O URN"        6 1 


little  astonished.  Playing  with  the  Polish 
boys  and  girls  were  two,  unmistakably  Irish, 
and  the  Polish  girl  who  seemed  the  oldest  in 
the  lot  carried  a  baby.  Maggie  came  to  the 
door  and  I  stated  my  errand. 

"  '  Come  in,  doctor.  I  am  glad  to  see  you. 
I  don't  bear  you  no  grudge  if  you  did  dis- 
charge me  ;  but  I  couldn't  go  to  that  hospital 
to  nurse.' 

"'Why  not?'  I  asked. 

" '  Oh,  well,  you  see,  I've  got  a  new  boss 
and  he  might  discharge  me  if  I  kissed  the 
patients.'  She  laughed  her  good  Irish  laugh. 
'  I've  started  nursing  again  on  my  own 
hook,'  she  continued ;  '  did  you  see  the 
kids?' 

"  '  Yes  ;  whose  are  they  ? ' 

" '  Well,'  she  said,  '  part  of  'em's  hisn, 
another  part  of  'em's  mine  and  one  of  'em's 
ourn.  The  little  one,  he's  a  cute  one  ;  there 
never  was  such  a  fine  baby. 

" '  Yes,'  she  said,  when  she  saw  the  aston- 
ishment on  my  face  ;  '  when  you  discharged 
me,  and  no  blame  to  you  neither,  the  Polack 
kid's  father  came  to  my  house  and  stood  by 


62  The  BROKEN  WALL 


the  kitchen  door  and  said  :  "  Dobre  den"  and 
I  said:  11  Dobre  devil."  You  know  you  can't 
help  learning  some  of  their  lingo.  Then  he 
said  :  "  How  much?  "  and  pointed  to  me,  and 
I  pushed  him  down  the  kitchen  steps  and 
slammed  the  door  behind  him. 

"  '  A  few  months  after,  didn't  that  Polack 
kid,  who  knocked  me  out  of  my  job,  come  to 
see  me  and  bring  me  a  big  bunch  of  flowers  1 
I  didn't  know  her  till  she  told  me  who  she 
was.  She  had  grown  a  bit ;  her  hair  was  cut 
short  and  she  looked  so  well.  She  wanted  to 
hug  me  and  then  I  remembered  that  McGin- 
nis  ' 

"At  the  mention  of  the  late  lamented  Mc- 
Ginnis'  name  the  tear-ducts  properly  opened. 
When  Maggie  had  dried  her  eyes  on  her 
kitchen  apron  she  continued  : 

"  '  When  I  remembered  that  McGinnis  lost 
his  life  for  them  Polacks  and  that  I  lost  my 
job  for  one  of  them,  I  just  took  that  kid  and 
told  her  to  keep  her  flowers  and  not  to  come 
again  till  I  sent  for  her.  I  was  sorry  when  I 
saw  her  blubbering  and  when  she  reached 
the  gate  I  remembered  she  didn't  have  no 


"  HISN,  MINE  and  OURN"  63 

mother ;  so  I  called  her  back  and  gave  her 
some  tea  and  she  was  sort  of  companion  like 
and  my  two  kids  took  to  her,  and  she  kept  on 
coming  every  day. 

"  '  One  day  Father  O'Shanahan  sent  for 
me.  He  is  a  nice  man,  the  Father  is;  he 
married  me  and  McGinnis ' — here  she  choked 
and  the  usual  shower  seemed  imminent — 
'  he  often  sends  for  me  to  do  a  bit  of  clean- 
ing, but  you  could  have  knocked  me  down 
flat ;  for  there,  with  him,  was  the  Polack 
and  his  three  kids.  That  Polack  kept  smil- 
ing at  me  and  his  kid  came  and  sat  in 
my  lap  as  if  she  belonged  there,  and  the 
others  came  too.  They  didn't  smell  a  little 
bit,  they  were  so  nice  and  clean.  Then 
Father  O'Shanahan  said  some  nice  things 
about  the  Polack. 

"  1  He  said  he  had  eight  hundred  dollars  in 
the  bank,  and  that  he  was  a  good  Catholic 
and  strictly  well-behaved,  except  drinkin'  a 
little  bit  here  and  there. 

" '  I  kind  of  saw  what  the  holy  Father 
was  drivin'  at  so  I  told  him,  with  all  respect, 
that  I  didn't  have  no  objections  to  the  Po» 


64  The  BROKEN  WALL 

lack  having  eight  hundred  dollars  in  the 
bank,  and  that  I  was  glad  he  was  a  good 
Catholic  and  sorry  he  drank ;  but  what  could 
you  expect  from  a  Polander  ? 

" '  Then  the  holy  Father's  face  kind  of 
sobered  and  he  told  me  that  McGinnis  ' — and 
she  cried  again — '  that  McGinnis  had  given 
his  life  for  these  Polanders.  Then  I  jumped 
up  and  made  for  the  poor  frightened  wretch, 
but  when  I  came  up  to  him  he  fell  down  on 
his  knees  and  got  hold  of  my  feet  and  began 
to  kiss  them  and  cried,  "  Dobra  Panye,  Dobra 
Panye  /"  and  the  little  kid  came  and  looked 
at  me  so  kind  of  pleading  like,  and  the  other 
kids  began  to  cry  and  then  I  cried  too  and 
then  the  holy  Father  could  have  done  any- 
thing he  wanted — and  he  did. 

" '  So  you  see,  doctor,  I  couldn't  go  to  do 
no  nursing.  Anyway  I  might  kiss  one  of 
your  patients  and  then  there  would  be  worse 
trouble  than  ever.' " 


IV 


A  Slavic  Oklahoman 

HE  talked  to  me  until  dawn,  and  when 
he  left  me  I  could  not  sleep,  for  he 
had  told  me  his  own  story ;  how  he 
had  lost  the  name  by  which  he  was  baptized, 
had  forgotten  his  native  tongue,  had  forsaken 
his  mother's  faith  and  but  dimly  remembered 
the  name  of  his  old  home.  For  twenty  years 
his  mind  and  soul  had  been  absorbed  in 
Oklahoma;  her  size,  her  wealth,  her  pros- 
pects. 

My  coming  and  speaking  had  recalled  to 
him  the  fact  that  he  was  a  Slav  by  birth,  that 
his  childhood  had  been  in  a  foreign  land,  and 
that  he  once  had  a  soul  which  reached  be- 
yond the  desire  to  own  fertile  soil  in  his 
adopted  state.  He  remembered  that  he  had 
loved,  and  that  his  real  name  was  not  the 
one  by  which  he  was  now  known. 

"  I  don't  recall  the  name  of  our  village," 
he  said  ;  "  but  we  had  four  days'  journey  to 
65 


66  The  BROKEN  WALL 


Trieste  and  my  name  was  Demetrius  Gon- 
dory." 

"  Gondory,"  I  said  ;  "  then  you  are  a  South- 
ern Slav  ;  because  if  you  were  from  the  North 
you  would  pronounce  it  softly  with  an  H. 

"  Don't  you  remember  anything  of  your 
language  ?  " 

"Yes,"  he  said;  "I  remember  a  song  in 
my  mother  tongue."  And  he  sang  for  me 
as  we  walked  from  the  church  to  my  hotel : 

"  Oh  !  thou  poor  river  Save 
Fret  not  against  thy  shores." 

From  the  song  and  the  way  he  sang,  I 
traced  him  to  the  shores  of  that  mountain 
stream,  where  it  is  young  and  turbulent.  He 
had  never  seen  it  where  it  broadens  and  car- 
ries ships  to  the  ocean ;  nor  did  he  know  the 
cities  below  it  and  above  it,  only  the  names 
of  two  mountains  which  overshadow  his  vil- 
lage. To  him  then,  I  recalled  its  name  which 
has  five  consonants  and  only  one  vowel,  but 
it  was  music  to  his  ears  and  he  repeated  it  a 
dozen  times. 

"  That's  it !  "  he  cried  ;  "  I  could  always  see 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  67 

it  with  my  eyes  but  I  could  not  speak  it  with 
my  tongue. 

"  America,"  he  said,  "  gives  a  man  more 
than  any  other  country,  but  it  takes  away 
more.  It  took  from  me  my  name,  my  native 
speech,  my  mother's  faith  ;  it  almost  blotted 
out  for  me  my  cradle  home,  and  what  has  it 
given  me? 

"  They  call  me  John,  although  the  priest 
baptized  me  Demetrius.  They  have  filled 
my  soul  with  the  love  of  gold  until  it  is  like 
a  cash  register  which  responds  only  to  the 
touch  on  the  dollar  key.  My  brain  is  full 
of  the  red  dust  oi  Oklahoma  and  they  have 
put  into  my  blood  the  love  for  a  fight  until 
I  am  like  a  bulldog.  Say,  I  can't  talk  with- 
out snarling. 

"  I  run  a  newspaper  which  is  just  a  series 
of  barks.  They  say  it  is  picturesque  for  I 
use  no  dashes — I  just  give  them  God  Al- 
mighty's Hell,  and  they  seem  to  like  it.  Of 
course  I  have  fought  for  some  things  worth 
while,  and  before  I  am  through  I  am  going 
to  see  a  few  of  the  gang  in  the  penitentiary  ; 
you  may  stake  your  bottom  dollar  on  that. 


68  The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  Now  my  story.  The  dominant  feeling  in 
my  childhood  was  fear.  Witches,  devils,  evil 
spirits  of  all  sorts  haunted  me,  and  religion 
was  the  great  bugaboo  to  drive  away  the 
other  bugaboos.  Say,  I  feel  it  creeping  over 
me  now,  that  old  fear.  Talk  about  devils ! 
I  can  see  their  red,  licking  tongues  of  fire 
when  I  am  alone  in  the  dark — hundreds, 
thousands  of  them,  and  I  am  afraid  that  when 
the  end  comes,  my  fighting  blood  will  turn  to 
buttermilk,  and  I  shall  crawl  back  into  the 
shelter  of  the  Church. 

"  My  mother  was  a  sweet,  timid  crea- 
ture ;  my  father  was  brutal,  and  when  I 
was  not  afraid  of  the  devils  I  was  afraid 
of  him.  I  remember  a  phrase  he  used  ;  it 
was  something  like  this :  '  Za  decu  je  u 
zapeckn  mesto.'  Do  you  know  what  it 
means  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  replied.  "  The  place  for  the  chil- 
dren is  behind  the  bake-oven." 

"  Yes,  that  must  be  it,  for  he  used  to  drive 
me  behind  an  old  brick  oven  which  took  up 
a  third  of  the  living-room.  It  was  dark  as  a 
pocket,  and  hot  as  Hell  and  I  could  see  noth- 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  69 

ing  but  devils.  When  you  hear  me  saying 
devil  every  other  minute,  remember  that  I 
have  personal  acquaintance  with  his  Satanic 
Majesty,  and  that  when  I  swear  I  mean  no 
harm.  I  have  heard  all  sorts  of  cuss  words 
from  the  day  I  was  born,  and  you  know  out 
here  in  Oklahoma  they  belong  to  the  native 
dialect. 

"  My  mother  dedicated  me  to  the  Church 
to  appease  the  devils  that  tormented  her,  and 
I  became  an  acolyte  at  ten  years  of  age.  I 
fought  the  bunch  of  holy  kids  for  the  privi- 
lege of  carrying  the  sacred  water,  or  the  cen- 
sor ;  for  only  then  did  I  feel  safe. 

"  I  don't  know  how  old  I  was  when  a  won- 
derful thing  happened  to  me — my  uncle  came 
back  from  America.  He  looked  to  me  like  a 
lord  and  he  acted  like  one.  He  got  the  whole 
town  drunk,  he  had  the  band  playing  for  him 
all  night,  he  swore  at  the  gendarmes  and  he 
brought  my  mother  a  gold  ring. 

"  He  talked  about  nothing  but  America — 
his  farm  and  mills.  He  said  he  had  a  flour 
mill,  a  sawmill,  carriage  and  horses  and 
cows,  and  so  many  pigs  that  he  couldn't 


70  The  BROKEN  WALL 

count  them.  He  persuaded  my  father  to  let 
me  go  with  him.  An  aunt  of  mine  was  go- 
ing along  to  bd  his  housekeeper,  his  wife 
having  died,  and  I  was  to  go  as  his  adopted 
son  and  heir. 

"  I  must  have  strutted  around  that  blessed 
town  like  a  peacock.  I  put  on  woollen 
clothes  and  a  black  hat,  and  I  wore  real 
leather  shoes  for  the  first  time  in  my  life. 
My  job  as  an  acolyte  went  to  a  cousin  of 
mine,  who,  before  I  left,  sprinkled  me  all  over 
with  holy  water  to  guard  me  against  the  evil 
spirits  I  might  encounter.  My  mother  wept 
and  prayed,  and  made  me  kneel  before  the 
crucifix  and  promise  two  things,  which  she 
most  feared  might  happen  :  never  to  forsake 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith  and  not  to  marry 
an  American  wife. 

"  My  uncle  lived  in  Illinois,  in  a  most  deso- 
late and  forsaken  place.  His  farm  was  a 
poor,  run-down  affair  and  his  mills  consisted 
of  a  feed  grinder  under  the  roof  of  his  barn, 
while  the  sawmill  was  a  hand-saw  and  the 
usual  buck. 

"  I  had  to  work  hard  ;  plow  the  corn  and 


A  SLA  VIC  OKLAHOMAN        7 1 

do  the  chores  while  my  uncle  frequented 
saloons  in  the  neighbouring  town.  He  took 
me  there  occasionally  and  regaled  me  with  a 
glass  or  two  of  beer.  There  I  learned  my 
first  English,  and  I  collected  such  a  fine  lot  of 
swear  words  that  I  have  not  had  to  learn 
much  in  that  direction  since. 

"  I  grew  physically  like  a  weed ;  I  had 
plenty  to  eat,  good  air  and  lots  of  exercise, 
but  mentally  and  spiritually  I  didn't  grow  an 
inch.  I  lived  in  the  world  of  evil  spirits, 
witches  and  devils  which  I  brought  with  me 
and  I  did  not  have  even  the  consolation  of 
the  incense  and  the  holy  water.  My  aunt 
and  I  went  to  church.  The  priest  was  Ger- 
man and  I  added  a  few  words  of  his  language 
to  my  own,  but  of  the  consolation  of  religion 
I  received  very  little. 

"  One  day  my  uncle,  in  a  drunken  fit, 
drove  me  from  the  farm.  Most  likely  I  was 
impudent  for  I  am  that  now,  to  a  superlative 
degree.  I  went  to  town  and  got  a  job  in  a 
saloon  in  which  my  uncle  was  a  good  cus- 
tomer. My  work  consisted  in  keeping  the 
filthy  barroom  reasonably  clean,  and  in  wait- 


72  The  BROKEN  WALL 

ing  on  customers  when  the  boss  had  imbibed 
too  much  of  his  own  wet  goods. 

"  I  slept  in  the  billiard  room  on  a  pool 
table,  another  one  being  a  bed  for  the  saloon- 
keeper's brother  who  kept  a  butcher  shop 
next  door.  He  was  a  consumptive,  and  in 
the  darkness  of  the  night  his  hacking  cough 
nearly  drove  me  crazy.  One  night  he  bled 
to  death  right  on  that  pool  table  and  I  was 
alone  with  him  till  morning.  You  can't  im- 
agine with  what  horrors  my  whole  being  was 
filled. 

"  The  night  after  the  funeral  as  I  lay  there 
at  midnight  I  would  have  given  anything  to 
have  heard  even  the  hacking  cough  of  the 
consumptive.  I  saw  nothing  but  corpses  and 
spirits.  I  shook  as  if  I  had  the  ague.  I  grew 
desperate.  I  went  behind  the  bar,  took  a  box 
of  sulphur  matches  and  poured  whiskey  over 
them ;  it  was  the  only  poison  of  which  I 
knew  and  I  was  about  to  drink  it  when  I 
heard  music,  a  waltz  tune.  I  heard  just  as  if 
it  was  a  dream — it  went  to  my  brain  and 
drove  the  witches  and  devils  and  the  fear  all 
out  of  me. 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  73 

"  I  left  the  saloon  and  went  after  it.  It 
came  from  the  Masonic  Hall  up  in  the  third 
story  of  the  temple.  I  climbed  up  those 
stairs  as  if  I  were  climbing  to  Heaven.  Say, 
they  may  talk  about  us  immigrants  being  il- 
literate but  we  know  music,  and  that's  culture. 

"  Music  saved  me  from  death,  if  from  noth- 
ing else.  I  looked  into  that  hall  and  to  me 
it  was  like  a  king's  chamber.  The  men  and 
women  who  danced  were  as  far  removed 
from  me  as  the  saloon  in  which  I  worked  was 
from  the  cloud  under  which  cherubim  and 
seraphim  kneel  before  the  ark. 

"  Do  you  know  what  the  one  thought  was 
that  held  me  and  lifted  me,  and  nearly  saved 
me  ?  To  live  I  So  to  live  that  some  day  I 
should  be  worthy  to  mingle  with  those  peo- 
ple. I  stood  entranced  by  the  melody,  the 
swaying  bodies,  the  cleanliness  and  the 
beauty.  I  felt  like  a  great  poet  must  feel 
when  he  is  lifted  into  his  seventh  heaven. 

"There  was  one  young  girl  upon  whom 
my  love-hungry  eyes  especially  rested,  and 
I  said  to  myself — I  don't  know  just  why  I 
said  it — I  shall  dance  with  her  some  day  in 


74  The  BROKEN  WALL 

this  very  room  ;  and  who  knows  what  she 
will  say  to  me,  and  I  will  say  to  her  ?  While 
I  was  held  by  the  vision  I  was  suddenly 
brought  to  earth  by  some  one  shouting : 
'  Look  at  the  funny  little  Dutchman  ! '  Then 
I  bolted  down-stairs,  resolved  not  to  be 
a  Dutchman,  and  more  strongly  resolved  to 
be  a  man. 

"  I  could  keep  you  here  ten  days  telling 
you  what  happened  in  the  next  ten  years. 
Jiminy  crickets !  I  got  the  Dutchman  or  the 
Slav  or  whatever  it  is  out  of  my  nature.  I 
climbed  high  enough  to  dance  with  that 
young  woman  in  the  same  hall,  or  for  all 
that  with  any  young  woman  in  that  blooming 
town.  I  never  entered  that  saloon  nor  any 
saloon.  I  was  offered  barkeeper's  wages ;  the 
beer  brewer  wanted  me  to  work  in  his  office. 
I  think  I  might  have  managed  to  own  the 
whole  blasted  brewery,  but  that  music  and 
that  young  woman  led  me  on  to  better 
things. 

"  Of  course  it  wasn't  anything  big  that  I 
got  to  be ;  just  a  bookkeeper  in  a  clothing 
store,  but  it's  heaps  better  than  bottle  washer 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  75 

in  a  saloon,  and  I  was  climbing,  you  bet  1  In 
six  months  I  could  talk  English.  I  read  like 
a  fiend :  Dickens,  Longfellow,  Old  Homer, 
the  Bible.  I  sat  under  an  old  oak  tree  one 
Sunday  reading  Longfellow's  1  Muratori  Sal- 
utamus,'  and  I  cried  like  a  baby,  because 
its  music  ravished  my  ears  and  its  pathos 
wrung  my  heart. 

"  She  passed  by  and  I  joined  her,  and  went 
to  church  with  her,  the  first  time  I  was  in  a 
Protestant  church.  They  had  a  revival  meet- 
ing on  and  they  sang  hymn  tunes  which  first 
moved  my  feet  as  if  I  were  going  to  dance, 
and  then  they  began  to  grip  my  heart  as  if  I 
should  die  unless  I  obeyed  their  pleading. 

"Say,  you  may  talk  about  that  stuff  not 
being  good  music ;  it  does  the  job  just  the 
same.  That  plaintive,  '  Why  not  ? '  '  Why 
not  ? '  sung  by  five  hundred  people,  usually 
women  and  children,  with  their  shrill  voices 
which  rack  your  nerves  and  make  you  feel 
like  a  sinner  who  is  pursued  by  the  devil — 
it's  great  music ;  it  was  for  me. 

"I  don't  remember  much  of  what  the 
preacher  said.    It  was  about  the  devil  and 


j6  The  BROKEN  WALL 

Hell,  about  sin  and  perdition,  and  when  he 
plead  with  men  to  repent  I  jumped  up,  and 
was  the  first  one  at  the  altar. 

"  I  writhed  like  an  epileptic  on  that  floor. 
I  tell  you  I  know  how  all  those  great  souls 
felt :  St.  Augustine,  St.  Francis  and  Luther, 
those  who  lived  in  the  middle  ages,  for  I  had 
not  outgrown  them ;  I  was  there.  To  me 
that  was  the  first  call  to  repentance,  the  first 
way  of  escape  opened. 

"  I  fought  for  hours  with  the  devil  who 
wanted  me  back  ;  I  saw  his  licking  tongue 
and  when  he  couldn't  prevail  against  me  he 
called  other  devils  to  his  aid.  Then  he  called 
my  mother  and  I  saw  her  with  her  rosary  in 
her  hand  kneeling  with  me  and  begging  me 
not  to  forsake  the  Mother  Church.  I  bolted 
for  the  door,  but  there  she  stood,  the  woman 
for  whom  my  heart  yearned,  and  she  led  me 
back  and  I  found  peace. 

"  I  have  read  a  whole  lot  of  psychology 
since.  I  know  William  James  almost  by 
heart.  I  have  outgrown  all  that  emotional 
Methodism  ;  but  as  I  think  back  I  know  that 
I  stood  on  a  pure  mountain  height,  one  which 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  77 

I  have  never  reached  again,  for  I  became 
like  Lucifer ;  but  that's  another  story." 

He  chewed  the  end  of  his  cigar  nervously. 

"  Say,  honestly,  am  I  not  boring  you  ?  I 
am  talking  to  you  as  if  you  were  my  father 
confessor." 

When  I  assured  him  that  I  was  willing  to 
stay  awake  all  night  to  listen  to  him,  he  con- 
tinued : 

"That  girl  whom  I  loved  as  I  have  never 
loved  since,  wouldn't,  couldn't  marry  me. 
She  was  much  older  ;  she  was  rich,  cultured, 
and  I  was  still  a  rough  human,  no  more  a 
Slav  and  scarcely  yet  an  American.  I  knew 
she  did  just  the  right  thing,  but  she  threw  me 
over  a  precipice,  and  I  never  stopped  falling 
till — well,  I  am  ahead  of  my  story. 

"  I  began  to  drink  and  the  old  alcohol- 
soaked  germs  in  me — my  ancestors'  drunken 
ghosts — cried  for  more  and  more,  till  I  was 
again  in  the  gutter.  I  drifted  West  further 
and  further  and  got  fairly  on  my  feet  in 
Kansas.  I  say  on  my  feet.  I  was  a  boozer 
still,  but  I  was  among  boozers. 

"  Say,  those  were  wild  days  and  great  days. 


78  The  BROKEN  WALL 

I  helped  to  make  cities  out  of  lonely  prairies  ; 
I  moved  county  seats,  and  helped  to  elect 
Congressmen  and  United  States  Senators. 
The  state  was  in  a  delirium  and  I  helped  to 
make  that.  People  were  real  estate  crazy 
and  I  acted  like  the  craziest  of  them  all. 

"  We  are  a  slow,  sluggish  race  ;  you  said 
that  to-night.  I  know  how  slow  my  own 
blood  runs,  but  I  out-Yankeed  the  Yankees  in 
my  pace  ;  not  in  the  drinking  line  alone,  nor 
in  playing  cards,  though  I  could  bluff  them 
at  their  own  game,  but  in  that  bigger  game 
which  they  call  business.  Say,  honest,"  he 
said,  "  you  ought  to  go  to  bed  !  " 

But  he  was  so  eager  to  tell  and  I  was  so 
eager  to  listen  that  he  continued,  although 
the  porters  were  mopping  the  floor  and  mov- 
ing the  chairs,  and  were  quite  anxious  to  have 
us  gone. 

"  I  began,  as  you  know,  as  a  farmer ;  I  be- 
came a  bartender  ;  I  then  went  into  the  cloth- 
ing business.  I  have  worked  in  a  grocery 
store,  slung  hash  in  a  restaurant,  driven  cabs, 
carried  hods.  I  owned  a  pantatorium,  then  I 
became  a  reporter.    Honestly,  I  believe  I  was 


A  SLA  VIC  OKLAHOMAN  79 

at  every  kind  of  business  except  selling  sub- 
scription books  and  life  insurance. 

"  Talk  about  the  immobility  of  the  Slav  1 
They  have  made  mercury  out  of  the  iron  in 
me.  I  am  sure  my  pulse  goes  a  good  many 
beats  faster  than  the  Creator  ordained  it 
should.  I  have  travelled  through  every  state 
in  the  Union,  and  I  have  not  bought  a  burial 
lot  yet,  for  I'll  be  slugged  if  I  know  where  I 
want  to  wait  for  Gabriel's  trumpet. 

"  Once  I  made  a  big  pile  of  money,  and  I 
went  back  to  Illinois,  for  I  had  not  forgotten 
her,  never  for  a  minute.  Talk  about  your 
great  emotions  !  Is  there  anything  bigger, 
do  you  think,  than  that  going  back  to  where 
you  were  born,  I  mean  consciously  born,  born 
again  ?  Where  at  sixteen  years  of  age  you 
crawled  out  of  the  womb  of  ignorance  and 
superstition,  and  began  to  live,  intellectually 
and  spiritually  ? 

"  I  have  a  sneaking  notion,  now  that  I  have 
heard  you  speak  of  us  Slavs,  that  I  want  to 
go  back  to  where  my  body  was  born,  and 
where  she  who  bore  me  lies  buried,  but  I  am 
sure  it  couldn't  mean  as  much  to  me  as  that 


8o  The  BROKEN  WALL 


other  going  back  meant.  No  one  recognized 
me.  I  had  grown  from  a  youth  into  a  man, 
into  an  old  man  almost,  for  I  had  gone  the 
pace  which  crowds  years  into  a  calendar 
page. 

"  I  went  out  to  the  farm  first.  I  hired  a 
carriage  to  take  me,  the  kind  they  use  at 
funerals  and  weddings.  The  old  man  still 
lived  ;  he  looked  exactly  like  his  farm,  seedy 
and  broken  down,  run  down  at  the  heel.  I 
thanked  God  for  the  deliverance  from  that 
place  and  that  kind  of  life. 

"  I  then  went  to  the  saloon  ;  it  had  pros- 
pered to  the  degree  that  my  uncle's  farm  had 
deteriorated.  There  were  fine  pictures,  plate 
glass,  and  a  barkeeper  in  a  white  jacket.  I 
then  went  to  the  clothing  store.  It  also  had 
changed  and  changed  for  the  better.  And 
then  I  went  to  see  her. 

"  I  rang  the  door-bell  and  waited  for  her 
in  the  parlour.  She  came.  There  was  a 
cherub  of  a  baby  in  her  arms,  and  a  three- 
year-old  kid  was  pulling  at  her  skirts  as  if 
determined  to  pull  them  off.  She  didn't 
recognize  me,  and  I   made   for  the  door, 


A  SLA  VIC  OKLAHOMAN  81 

stammering  apologies.  She  must  have 
thought  me  crazy. 

"  I  went  up  to  the  dance  hall  in  the  Masonic 
Temple  and  I  cried  right  there  by  the  closed 
doors.  I  guess  it's  easier  for  a  Slav  to  cry 
than  for  a  Yankee.  Then  I  made  for  the 
tree  under  which  I  used  to  read  poetry,  and 
I  had  a  good  look  at  the  Methodist  church, 
and  there  too  I  blubbered  like  a  baby.  I 
left  the  town  as  soon  as  I  could,  and  going 
through  Chicago  the  old  devils  got  hold  of 
me  again  and  I  blew  in  every  cent  I  had — I 
needn't  tell  you  how. 

"  Then  I  came  to  this  blooming  town  and 
slept  on  this  very  hill  where  this  hotel  stands, 
but  there  was  nothing  above  me  but  the 
stars,  and  under  me  the  red  soil  of  Oklahoma. 
There  was  red  soil  over  me  too,  for  the  wind 
blew  great  guns,  and  I  swallowed  dirt  enough 
to  feel  that  I  was  the  owner  of  some  real 
estate  at  least,  even  if  I  didn't  have  a  red 
copper  in  my  pocket. 

"  It's  different  now.  I  am  a  stockholder 
in  this  hotel ;  I  own  a  printing  shop  and  a 
newspaper.    They  call  me  a  scrapper  and  I 


82  The  BROKEN  WALL 


am.  I  have  fought  and  am  still  fighting.  I 
have  made  enemies  enough  so  that  I  have  to 
keep  in  fighting  trim  all  the  time.  You  will 
hear  lots  of  lies  about  me,  but  no  one  will 
tell  you  that  I  haven't  fought  fair.  I  could 
have  sold  myself  and  my  interests  a  dozen 
times  ;  I  have  refused  to  touch  their  dirty 
money.  I  have  fought  for  the  farmers ; 
say,  I  am  a  farmer  still  at  heart.  My  an- 
cestors, you  said,  were  an  agricultural 
people." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "they  were  people  of  the 
plow  and  not  of  the  sword." 

"That's  right,"  he  said.  "I  am  a  child  of 
the  soil ;  I  feel  it  in  my  blood.  I  have  started 
more  fights  than  a  bulldog,  but  from  what 
you  said  to-night  I  fight  like  a  Slav,  clumsily 
and  ill-sustained.  I  lack  confidence  in  my- 
self and  in  others.  The  only  thing  I  have 
confidence  in  is  this  blooming  state. 

"It's  bound  to  be  the  greatest  state  in  the 
Union,  the  centre  of  population.  It  has  the 
soil  and  the  climate.  It  can  raise  better 
cotton  than  Louisiana ;  it  beats  Nebraska  for 
com  and  California  for  fruit.    It  has  them 


A  SLAVIC  OKLAHOMAN  83 

all  beaten,  for  we  have  two  crops  on  top  of 
the  soil  and  three  crops  beneath  it :  coal, 
gas  and  oil,  and  then  our  natural  resources 
are  not  yet  developed." 

He  talked  fifteen  minutes  more  about 
Oklahoma  ;  her  constitution,  her  schools  and 
churches,  and  then  I  laid  my  hand  upon  his 
shoulder  and  looking  into  his  face,  aglow 
from  the  enthusiasm  of  his  deliverance,  I 
said  : 

"  Verily,  Demetrius  Gondory,  thou  art  an 
American." 


V 


Mules  and  the  Tolstoy  Doctrine 

"  f"l  ^HEY  may  call  that  man  Tolstoy  a 
crank,  but  by  ginger !  cranks  who 
make  their  own  trail  often  strike  a 

lead,  while  the  fellow  who  travels  on  the  pike 

never  comes  in  sight  of  pay  dirt.    You  made 

me  like  that  man,  by  ginger  !  " 

The  speaker  was  a  typical  Westerner  who, 

in  this  unceremonious  fashion,  addressed  me 

after  I  had  delivered  a  lecture  on  the  great 

Russiaa 

"  By  ginger  !  "  he  continued,  "  here  is  an- 
other crank ;  take  a  good  look  at  him." 

I  did  as  I  was  bid.  His  was  a  shrewd  but 
kindly  face ;  one  might  almost  have  called 
it  the  face  of  a  dreamer,  had  the  eyes  been 
less  piercing  and  the  lips  less  firmly  set. 

"Why  do  they  call  me  a  crank?  I  guess 
because  I  believe  that  mules  have  at  least 
mule  sense  if  they  haven't  got  horse  sense,  and 
that  they  are  just  like  folks ;  some  good  and 
84 


MULES  and  TOLSTO  Y  DOCTRINE  85 

some  bad,  and  that  when  they  are  real  bad, 
it's  the  fault  of  folks  instead  of  their  maker. 

"Say,  if  you  are  not  afraid  of  'lungers' 
come  out  to  my  ranch  to-morrow.  If  my 
mules  don't  interest  you  the  '  lungers '  will. 
The  mules  come  all  the  way  from  Spain  to 
Missouri,  and  the  1  lungers '  are  international 
too.  Roosians,  Germans,  Yankees,  Jews  and 
Gentiles — no  Mormons  or  Turks.  They  call 
my  place  the  '  International  Mule  and  Lungers' 
Institute,'  and  I  am  the  president.  No  real 
full-fledged  president.  I  haven't  got  a  degree 
and  I  don't  go  asking  nobody  for  money." 

The  ranchman  was  pushed  aside  as  I 
shook  hands  with  men  and  women  who  ut- 
tered the  usual  kind  commonplaces.  Out  of 
that  mass,  I  remember  one  other  person  ;  a 
Jew  with  a  massive,  broad  skull  towering  over 
a  face  more  Slavic  than  Semitic.  His  cheeks 
were  deep  sunken,  his  back  was  bent  and  he 
had  the  peculiar  gait  which  marks  those  who 
have  had  to  "  Walk  softly  all  their  days." 

"  I  want  to  shake  the  hand  which  has 
touched  that  of  the  great  Tolstoy,"  he  said  in 
broken  English  as  he  came  close  to  me. 


86  The  BROKEN  WALL 


He  would  have  passed  on,  but  I  detained 
him.  His  hand  resting  in  mine  was  cold  and 
clammy,  and  although  I  am  not  a  physician, 
my  finger  sought  his  pulse  and  I  knew  that 
he  was  a.  very  sick  man. 

"  I  am  a  threefold  exile,"  he  said  ;  for  he 
understood  the  meaning  of  that  touch.  "  I 
am  a  Jew,  a  revolutionist  and  a  consumptive. 
There  are  many  of  us  here  and  we  would  ap- 
preciate it  very  much  if  you  would  come  to 
see  us.  Just  ask  for  the '  Lungers'  Institute ' ; 
any  one  will  show  you  the  way." 

I  did  not  need  any  one  to  show  me  the  way, 
for  the  president  of  the  "  International  Mule 
and  Lungers'  Institute  "  sent  his  "  kid  "  with 
a  coach  and  team  after  me.  It  did  not  mat- 
ter much  that  the  coach  was  a  two-wheeled 
cart  and  the  team  a  pair  of  Rocky  Mountain 
burros.  The  cart  was  fairly  comfortable,  and 
the  burros  went  without  having  to  be  damned 
a  thousand  times  or  kicked  or  pushed  into 
mobility.  Not  more  than  a  dozen  times  did 
the  beasts  stop  to  nibble  at  the  harsh,  dry 
grass,  and  each  time  they  started,  after  a 
strong  pull  at  the  bits.    No  whip  was  used  ; 


MULES  and  TOLSTO  Y  DOCTRINE  87 

for  there  was  none,  and  as  for  profanity,  not 
once  did  the  "  kid  "  go  beyond  his  father's 
"  by  ginger." 

The  drive  ended  upon  a  treeless  plateau 
surrounded  by  fantastic  rock  shapes,  thrown 
up,  torn  up — restless  looking  heaps  of  stones, 
typical  of  the  race  which  inhabits  the  conti- 
nent. Among  the  rocks  stood  the  rancher's 
home  ;  a  modest,  far-stretching  building,  and 
behind  or  rather  to  one  side  of  it  was  the 
"  International  Institute,"  its  corral  dormito- 
ries full  of  melancholy  looking  mules,  burros 
and  donkeys. 

It  was  indeed  an  "International  Institute." 
There  were  white  Egyptian  donkeys  whose 
ancestors  bore  upon  their  backs  kings  and 
potentates.  Their  relatives  now  carry  globe 
trotters  past  the  silent  Sphinx  to  the  foot  of 
the  great  pyramids. 

There  were  black  trimmed,  gray  donkeys 
who  might  have  pulled  heavy  blocks  of  marble 
through  the  streets  of  Carrara  ;  Spanish  jacks, 
the  aristocrats  of  donkey-dom — large,  stately 
creatures ;  and  there  were  just  mules,  with- 
out pedigree  and  without  progeny. 


88  The  BROKEN  WALL 


In  them  all,  the  pathetic  and  the  ridiculous  ; 
the  wise  and  the  stupid ;  the  gentle  and  the 
vicious  ;  the  industrious  and  the  lazy  touched 
and  overlapped  so  closely,  that  I  realized  how 
easily  one  usually  recognizes  only  their  poor 
qualities. 

"  What  can  you  expect?"  the  president  of 
the  mule  college  replied,  answering  my 
audible  musings.  "  An  ass  !  Who  ever  has 
spoken  a  good  word  of  an  ass  ?  Of  course 
it's  stubborn,  why  shouldn't  it  be?  We've 
whipped  it  and  whipped  it,  by  ginger  !  we've 
whipped  the  manhood  out  of  it.  We've 
whipped  all  our  cussedness  into  it,  and  every 
once  in  a  while,  in  its  dumb  brute  way,  it  re- 
members what  we  have  done  for  it  and  all  its 
kin,  and  it  puts  its  legs  astraddle  and  its  head 
to  the  ground,  and  lets  its  back  down  till  its 
belly  touches  the  ground,  and  it  says  to  it- 
self :  '  Now  you  just  kick  and  swear  and  swear 
and  kick,  and  by  ginger !  I  won't  move  for 
you,  not  one  inch,  you  man  brute  you  1 ' 

"  They  never  forget  when  you've  done 
them  harm.  They  may  have  little  brain  but 
they've  got  big  ears  and  a  mighty  whole  lot 


MULES  and  TOLSTO  Y DO CTRINE  89 


more  goes  into  those  ears  than  you  think, 
and  stay*  there  through  many  generations. 
The  other  day  one  of  my  men  stooped  to  lift 
a  dragging  rein,  and  one  of  those  burros 
hit  him,  with  the  forefoot,  mind  you,  right  in 
the  head.  When  he  came  to,  I  said  to  him  : 
'  Have  you  hit  that  beast  lately  ? '  He 
couldn't  remember,  he  felt  so  svvimmy,  but  in 
the  evening  he  came  and  confessed.  About 
six  weeks  before,  he  had  kicked  that  mule  in 
the  ribs.  '  Now  you're  even,'  I  said  ;  '  don't 
you  try  that  kind  of  a  trick  again  or  else  you 
may  hit  the  road,  you  tramp  you  ! ' 

"  I'll  show  them  to  you  at  their  best,"  he 
said.  "  It's  about  time  for  the  daily  review." 
I  followed  him  across  the  dusty  yard.  He 
dropped  the  top  rail  from  the  corral  and  gave 
a  peculiar  call  which  I  suppose  meant  in 
donkey  language,  "  come  on."  They  jumped 
over  the  two  rails  which  separated  them  from 
their  master  and  crowded  rather  uncomfort- 
ably close  to  the  visitor. 

"  No  crowding  now,  boys  !  "  He  looked  at 
them  and  moved  his  hand  commandingly. 
At  once  the  crowd  of  asses  fell  back  and 


90  The  BROKEN  WALL 

came  out  one  by  one,  following  the  leader, 
Indian  file. 

Waving  his  hand,  the  ranchman  spoke 
again  and  the  leader  turned  ;  while  with  mil- 
itary precision  the  big  arid  little  asses  followed 
him.  They  turned  again,  then  faced  us  and 
reversed,  after  which  each  one  received  a 
handful  of  alfalfa  hay,  and  they  were  let  into 
the  enclosure  once  more  ;  although  not  with- 
out lingering  on  the  way,  to  sniff  the  ground 
and  pull  at  the  dry  tufts  of  grass. 

"  I'm  not  trying  any  high  jinks  with  them  ; 
they're  just  mules ;  but  I  can  break  'em  and 
bust  'em  without  cussin'  and  whippin',  and 
by  ginger  !  I  can  do  it  every  time.  They 
haven't  forgotten  yet  that  they  have  a  busi- 
ness end ;  they're  not  angels  yet  and  you  have 
to  watch  the  hind  quarter  of  some  of  them  ; 
for  there  are  mules  and  mules,  just  as  there 
are  folks  and  folks.  Say,  that  old  fellow  in 
Roosia,  what's  his  name  ?  Tol — how  do  you 
pronounce  it  ?  " 

I  helped  him  out :  "  Tolstoy." 

"  Yes,  he  is  right,  even  if  I  can't  pronounce 
his  name.    Love  is  stronger  than  hate,  and  a 


MULES  and  TOLSTOY  DOCTRINE  91 

kind  word  goes  further  with  any  beast  than 
a  cussin'  or  a  whippin'.  He  may  be  a  little 
forehanded  wanting  to  do  away  with  the 
police  and  the  prisons  ;  folks  are  so  cussedly 
used  to  'em  they  think  they  can't  keep  straight 
without  'em  ;  but  by  ginger  !  if  one  genera- 
tion of  asses  can  be  kept  straight  without 
kickin'  and  cussin' — although,  of  course,  asses 
is  asses  and  folks  is  folks. 

"  They  call  me  a  sentimental  cuss  out  here 
because  I'm  not  handy  with  the  whip  or  with 
cuss  words ;  but  by  ginger !  it  takes  some 
strength  to  keep  your  hand  from  grabbin'  the 
whip  every  time  a  mule  gets  busy  with  his 
hind  quarters  ;  and  as  to  swearin',  by  gin- 
ger  " 

There  was  an  eloquent  pause  and  I  knew 
how  hard  it  was  even  that  minute  for  him  to 
keep  from  it 

"  I  just  got  to  bite  my  tongue,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  and  then  I  remember  that  it  isn't  for 
any  mortal  to  damn  anything  or  anybody, 
and  that  you  ought  not  to  take  the  Lord's 
name  upon  your  lips  when  they  are  dirty  with 
meanness. 


92  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  You  just  tell  that  man  in  Roosia  that  I 
have  tried  his  medicine  on  mules  and  it  works 
all  right,  but  that  it  doesn't  work  quite  so  well 
among  the  humans. 

"  Say,  my  aggregation  of '  lungers  '  live  to- 
gether as  if  each  one  of  them  were  guarding 
an  international  boundary.  I  had  to  separate 
them  the  other  day.  The  Gentiles  wouldn't 
live  with  the  Jews.  The  crankiest  of  the 
whole  lot  are  those  who  are  going  to  King- 
dom Come,  lickety  split ;  they  want  to  die 
hating  each  other.  By  ginger !  mules  is 
angels  compared  with  folks ;  I  can't  under- 
stand it." 

My  host  pointed  the  way  to  the  Jewish 
colony  where  I  expected  to  find  my  acquaint- 
ance of  the  evening  before.  I  had  already 
left  the  precincts  of  the  "  Mule  Institute " 
when  he  called  after  me  :  "  Say,  you  needn't 
believe  every  word  those  Jews  tell  you. 
They're  a  mighty  sensitive  lot  and  they  can 
imagine  more  in  one  day  than  can  happen  in 
a  year.    Good-bye.    Come  again." 

I  went  back  through  the  canyon  which  sep- 
arated the  mules  from  the  humans,  and  a 


MULES  and  TOLSTOY  DOCTRINE  93 

short  distance  up  the  old  Mormon  trail,  pass- 
ing beneath  those  restless  mountain  walls  in 
which  no  two  rocks  lie  peacefully  upon  one 
another.  Struggling  and  quarrelling  in  some 
dumb,  stony  way,  they  make  room  for  the 
wind  to  blow  in,  to  carry  away  the  binding 
soil  between,  and  for  the  rain  to  rush  through 
in  torrents  so  that  nature  may  make  dust  for 
the  valleys,  out  of  the  proud  Rocky  Moun- 
tains. 

No  more  desolate  spot  can  be  imagined 
than  that  Jewish  division  of  the  "  Lungers' 
Institute."  It  is  a  bit  of  treeless  and  grass- 
less  plain,  with  a  few  scattered  outbuildings, 
rudely  constructed,  and  the  house  on  the 
edge  of  a  cliff  between  the  roadway  and  a 
deep  canyon. 

"  It  wasn't  much  of  a  place  this,"  my  host 
greeted  me  with  apology,  "  and  all  they 
wanted  out  of  it  was  health  ;  for  each  mem- 
ber of  the  colony  traded  in  the  surrounding 
mining  camps  and  thus  managed  to  make  a 
living.  None  of  them  was  fitted  for  manual 
labour,  which  was  both  hard  and  irksome,  and 
although  peddling  was  no  easy  task,  it  had 


94  The  BROKEN  WALL 

its  chance  of  loss  and  gain  and  brought  one 
in  contact  with  men  and  affairs." 

It  was  a  typical  group  of  Russian  Jews 
which  gathered  around  the  samovar  after  sup- 
per. They  all  drank  glass  after  glass  of  steam- 
ing tea,  all  smoked  cigarettes,  all  talked  at 
once  and  all  talked  well.  They  spoke  of  their 
day's  business,  of  course,  and  of  that  no  Jew 
ever  speaks  hopefully.  It  is  a  remnant  of  the 
old  Asiatic  superstition  which  always  speaks 
ill  of  that  which  it  wishes  well,  and  vice 
versa;  but  it  may  have  a  later  interpretation 
in  the  Jew's  necessity  for  hiding  his  prosper- 
ity from  his  Gentile  neighbour. 

No  one  is  deceived,  though,  by  that  shrug 
of  the  shoulders  and  those  downcast  looks, 
and  secretly  every  man  in  that  group  was 
computing  just  how  much  jewelry  and  dry- 
goods  he  had  sold  during  the  week,  as  they 
climbed  the  mountainsides  between  Denver 
and  Cripple  Creek. 

And  yet,  everybody  had  to  believe  what 
Isaac  Ragowsky  said  ;  for  he  was  new  to 
America  and  to  the  peddling  business,  and 
had  not  yet  learned  the  tricks  of  the  trade. 


MULES  and  TOLSTO  Y  DOCTRINE  95 

A  student  in  the  engineering  school  at  Mos- 
cow, of  a  wealthy,  cultured  family  at  Minsk, 
he  fled  to  New  York  after  losing  his  all,  dur- 
ing the  recent  disorders.  There  he  "  sweated  " 
and  coughed  and  coughed  and  "  sweated," 
until  the  members  of  the  revolutionary  group 
sent  him  to  Colorado. 

"  I  am  done  with  your  peddling  business," 
he  said.  "  Any  one  who  wants  to  take  my 
pack  may  have  it.  I'll  go  to  Denver  and 
work  at  anything  ;  but  no  more  peddling  for 
me — I  have  been  1  Sheenyd '  long  enough. 
To-day  I  came  to  a  ranch,  and  when  the 
woman  saw  me  she  said  :  1  Get  out  of  here, 
you  Sheeny,  or  I'll  set  my  dogs  on  you.'  She 
didn't  have  to  say  it  twice  ;  I  went.  I  hadn't 
gone  five  steps  when  her  husband  came 
along,  and  said  to  her,  '  Why  do  you  send 
that  poor  beggar  away  ?  Give  him  some- 
thing to  eat'  That  was  worse  than  the 
'  Sheeny '  business." 

He  put  a  lump  of  sugar  into  his  glass, 
moodily  sipped  his  tea  and  pulled  at  his  un- 
lighted  cigarette. 

"  You'll  be  '  Sheenyd  '  more  when  you  go 


96  The  BROKEN  WALL 

to  work  in  a  shop,"  said  another  one  of  the 
group.  "  I  am  a  machinist  and  when  I  went 
to  work  in  Pueblo,  the  whole  shop  kicked. 
The  men  didn't  want  to  work  with  a  '  Sheeny.' 
Now  I  am  in  business  and  at  least  the  man 
who  sells  me  goods  treats  me  decently.  He 
calls  me  Mr.  Rosenthal.  He  doesn't  call  me 
'  Sheeny  ' — not  when  I  am  around,  and  if  a 
man  who  buys  goods  of  me  calls  me  that,  he 
pays  for  it,  you  bet  he  does." 

"  But  they  have  '  Sheenyd '  us  here,  haven't 
they  ?  "  some  one  suggested. 

That  opened  wide  the  discussion  of  the 
question  of  race  hate  to  which  they  had  re- 
peatedly fallen  victims,  and  I  was  asked 
whether  I  thought  it  was  growing  or  dimin- 
ishing. 

I  said  that  it  is  growing,  and  I  gave  my 
reasons.  "  First,  because  race  consciousness 
is  growing  stronger  in  the  United  States, 
and  that  all  people  who  show  decided  race 
peculiarities  are  put  outside  the  sphere  of 
common  sympathies.  In  that  respect  a  Jew- 
ish face  and  name  are  handicaps  to  be  reck- 
oned with. 


MULES  and  TOLSTOY  DOCTRINE  97 

"  Second,  the  large  number  of  Jews  congre- 
gating in  the  cities  helps  to  preserve  and  em- 
phasize those  characteristics  which  are  dis- 
agreeable to  the  American  people. 

"  Third,  the  success  attained  by  the  Jew 
in  business  lends  colour  to  the  idea  that  he 
uses  shady  methods ;  thus  strengthening 
prejudice  in  some  people  and  often  awaken- 
ing it  in  others,  because  of  the  competition 
they  have  to  suffer  from  the  Jews.  In  a 
word,  there  are  three  great  reasons. 

"  First,  the  Jew  is  unlike  the  American 
physically  ;  he  is  an  Oriental  still. 

"Second,  his  mental  attitude  is  different 
from  that  of  the  American.  He  is  all  emo- 
tion, he  is  aggressive,  he  carries  his  heart  on 
his  sleeve  ;  while  the  American  is  cool  and 
reserved  and  likes  to  keep  at  arm's  length 
from  his  neighbour. 

"Third,  he  is  a  keen  business  man  and 
presses  the  Yankee  close  in  nearly  all  avenues 
of  trade." 

It  was  something  like  a  class-room  lecture 
which  I  delivered,  and  strange  to  say  I  was 
listened  to  respectfully  and  without  interrup- 


98  The  BROKEN  WALL 

tion ;  but  when  I  had  finished,  the  storm 
broke  loose. 

"  Who  compelled  us  to  be  different,  and 
kept  us  so  ?  " 

"Who  locked  us  into  Ghettos  and  put 
badges  on  us,  and  made  us  love  trade?" 

"To  the  Gentile,"  I  continued,  "it  makes 
no  difference  who  made  you  what  you  are, 
or  what  the  causes  which  produced  your 
faults.  He  takes  you  as  you  are.  He 
doesn't  stop  to  call  history  to  account ;  the 
individual  has  no  time  for  that.  These 
'  lungers  '  who  made  you  move  on,  and  who 
don't  want  to  have  anything  to  do  with  you, 
merely  followed  their  impulses.  They  don't 
want  you,  that's  all. 

"  I  don't  apologize  for  them ;  they  lack  the 
Christian  virtue,  patience,  which  in  its  un- 
hurried way  looks  forward  and  backward 
and  all  around, — and  of  humility  which  looks 
within,  to  discover  its  own  racial  fault ;  and 
thus  upon  the  lowlier  plane  make  contacts 
which  were  impossible  before. 

"  Christianity," — they  all  scoffed  at  the 
word. 


MULES  and  TOLSTOY  DOCTRINE  99 

"Were  they  not  locked  into  Ghettos  by 
Christian  rulers  ?  " 

"  Even  here  were  they  not  hated  and  os- 
tracized by  people  of  that  faith  ? " 

All  of  them  talked  excitedly  and  agreed 
among  themselves  upon  one  thing  only : 
that  Christianity  as  they  knew  it  is  a  cruel, 
merciless  fact ;  and  that  the  Christianity 
which  I  talked  about  is  the  belief  of  a  few, 
and  the  practice  of  fewer  still. 

They  all  held  the  larger  faith  in  a  common 
humanity ;  for  they  were  nearly  all  dreamers 
of  dreams,  who  had  risked  fortune,  home, 
life  itself — and  each  one  of  them  would  have 
gladly  purged  himself  of  racial  faults  to  make 
contact  with  other  humans  possible.  But 
could  they  ?  Was  it  not  all  unalterably  fixed 
in  their  natures  ? 

I  left  the  Jewish  "  lungers "  and  went 
across  the  canyon  which  separated  them 
from  their  companions  in  the  struggle  with 
disease.  The  canyon  is  a  wound  in  the 
breast  of  Mother  Earth.  What  mysterious 
force  cut  thus  deeply  into  it  I  knew  not. 
Ages  of  fretting  waters  have  worn  it  and 


ioo  The  BROKEN  WALL 


torn  it,  compelled  by  the  same  mighty  power. 
"Is  there  a  force,"  I  asked  myself,  "which 
can  heal  the  bruise  and  compel  the  cleft  in 
the  rock  to  disappear  ? 

"  Stone  is  sundered  from  stone,  although 
the  same  forces  shaped  them  and  still  are 
moving  within  them.  Shall  they  ever  be 
united?" 

It  all  seemed  so  hopeless  to  me — this 
yearning  of  mine  for  brotherhood.  Those 
Jews  and  Gentiles  were  as  far  apart  as  the 
rocks,  and  as  immovable.  The  differences 
must  be  as  deep  and  irreconcilable  as  the 
mysterious  canyon. 

"Yet,"  I  said  to  myself,  "  it  is  the  same  stone 
on  either  side,  some  of  it  harder,  exposed 
less  to  wind  and  rain — the  other  softer,  ready 
to  yield  to  the  firm  touch  working  upon  it  for 
ages.  The  difference  is  only  a  difference  of 
time  and  sun  and  wind — not  of  the  stone.  It 
is  so  with  these  men,  unwilling  or  unable  to 
live  or  die  together.  Will  they  not  some  day 
realize  this  inner  unity?" 

I  climbed  the  other  side  of  the  steep  canyon 
deep  in  thought,  and  before  I  knew  it  I  was 


MULES  and  TOLSTO  Y DOCTRINE  101 


in  the  Gentiles'  camp — the  camp  from  which 
the  Jews  were  separated.  Here  too  were 
men — nothing  more  or  less  than  men,  about 
to  die.  Mere  skeletons  they  were,  with 
wasted  bodies  and  sunken  eyes ;  yet  with 
energy  enough  left  to  hate — or  call  it  by  a 
better  name  if  you  can :  still  full  of  prejudice, 
although  their  breath  was  laboured  and  their 
pulse-beat  weak. — Yes,  I  found  the  hate  in 
them  as  deep  as  the  fissure  in  the  rock  and 
as  unhealing. 

"  Is  the  future  then  all  dark?"  "Is  there 
to  be  no  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  ?  "  Then 
into  this  one  hopeless  moment  of  mine  came 
the  braying  of  the  asses — that  ridiculous,  yet 
painful  call  of  those  painfully  ridiculous 
beasts ;  I  remembered  what  I  had  seen  ac- 
complished by  love  among  asses  and  I  said  : 
"  I  will  keep  on  trying  it  among  men." 


VI 


When  Miss  Mary  Passes 

THE  woman  with  a  great  purpose 
need  never  grow  old,  and  she  may 
be  assured  of  ever  renewing  beauty 
if  she  be  concerned  for  the  well-being  of 
those  less  fortunate  than  herself.  Women,  to 
whom  the  experiences  of  wifehood  and  moth- 
erhood are  denied,  may  feel  all  the  joy  and 
the  pain  of  both,  in  a  life  of  service  which 
calls  for  the  exercise  of  all  human  virtues 
and  which  will  bring  into  play  all  the  deeper 
emotions. 

These  seeming  platitudes  forced  themselves 
upon  me  as  I  walked  one  day  with  her  whom 
the  children  ran  after  and  called  "  Miss  Mary" ; 
while  they  kissed  her  hands  as  reverently  as 
they  might  have  kissed  the  hands  of  that 
Mary  whom  their  parents  called  the  "  Mother 
of  God." 

Young  men  and  young  women  came  to 
102 


WHEN  MISS  MAR  Y  PASSES  103 

her  asking  advice  and  confessing  faults,  with 
more  confidence  than  they  ever  felt  in  ap- 
proaching that  sacred,  solemn  place  where 
sins  were  forgiven  them  in  the  name  of  the 
Just  Judge. 

Miss  Mary  was  Mater  Dolorosa  often — at 
birth  and  death.  When  there  was  a  storm 
on  the  matrimonial  sea,  the  unhappy  ones 
called  on  her  in  their  distresses,  instead  of 
upon  the  saint  who  has  especial  charge  over 
conjugal  difficulties. 

Miss  Mary  lives  in  an  eastern  suburb,  and 
were  she  asked  to  describe  her  neighbours, 
she  would  call  them  lovely  ;  which  means 
that  they  are  all  stylishly  and  properly 
gowned,  that  all  of  them  own  their  homes, 
and  that  they  can  observe  the  social  ameni- 
ties towards  each  other,  without  condescen- 
sion or  fear  of  being  snubbed.  In  fact  if  any 
one  speaks  of  that  suburb  it  is  always 
"  lovely." 

It  is  "  far  from  the  madding  crowd,"  yet 
easily  reached  by  express  trains ;  it  has 
beautiful  homes,  built  under  restrictive  rules, 
so  that  it  always  felt  as  safe  from  vulgar  dis- 


104  The  BROKEN  WALL 

play  as  from  the  invasion  of  factories  and 
crowding  tenements.  But  the  power  to  re- 
strict and  restrain  extended  only  to  the  town 
limits,  and  there,  as  close  as  the  well-defined 
line  would  permit,  a  silk-mill  was  to  be 
erected,  much  to  the  chagrin  of  the  "  lovely  " 
people  of  the  "  lovely  "  suburb. 

"  Of  course,"  the  women  said,  "  a  silk-mill 
isn't  as  bad  as  a  steel-mill " — and  they  com- 
forted themselves  by  a  vision  of  beautiful 
buildings  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  magnifi- 
cent garden  where  mulberry  trees  and  trail- 
ing vines  and  flowers  grew.  In  imagination 
they  saw  the  garden  full  of  graceful  Italian 
women  in  picturesque  costumes,  gathering 
cocoons  from  the  trees ;  while  others  spun 
silvery  sheets  of  shining  silk,  singing  the 
while  of  '  Italia,  Italia '  ! 

"Just  think  of  wearing  dresses  of  silk 
woven  almost  at  our  very  door  1 "  Thus 
said  the  "  lovely  "  women  of  the  "  lovely  " 
suburb. 

When  Miss  Mary  in  her  carriage  passed  the 
silk-mill  for  the  first  time,  she  was  properly 
shocked  at  seeing  an  ugly,  box-like  building 


WHEN  MISS  MAR  Y  PASSES    1 05 

as  close  to  the  roadway  as  it  could  crowd. 
The  window-panes  were  splashed  over  by- 
whitewash,  to  admit  a  maximum  of  daylight 
and  to  permit  a  minimum  waste  of  time  on 
the  part  of  those  who  toiled  within,  and  who 
might  long  for  a  glimpse  of  the  beautiful  out- 
of-doors. 

This  was  the  silk-mill,  and  behind  it  stood 
a  row  of  tenements  as  close  as  possible  to  the 
dusty  road  and  to  one  another.  Factory 
waste,  empty  tin  cans,  uncut  weeds  and  stag- 
nant sewage  flanked  the  tenements ;  while 
any  view  of  the  "lovely"  homes  of  the 
"  lovely "  people  was  shut  out  by  a  hill  de- 
nuded of  its  verdure,  barren  and  forbidding. 

Miss  Mary's  coachman,  at  her  bidding, 
drove  over  the  rough  road  and  past  the  tene- 
ments. Half-clad,  dirty  little  Italian  children 
drew  back  shyly  at  her  approach ;  angry 
eyes  watched  her  from  the  small  windows, 
and  the  men  she  met  looked  sullenly  at  her. 

When  she  returned  from  her  calls  she 
passed  the  mill  again,  although  not  from 
choice ;  she  had  to  pass  it.  The  six-o'clock 
whistle  blew,  and  while  it  was  blowing  the 


106  The  BROKEN  WALL 

doors  of  the  mill  swung  open  and  dark-eyed 
girls,  half-grown  children,  and  bent  old 
women  stepped  eagerly  out  into  the  air, 
fresh  and  fragrant  from  the  hills.  Their 
hair,  their  garments,  their  very  eyebrows 
were  full  of  clinging  dust,  the  colour  was 
gone  from  their  cheeks  and  even  the  young 
girls  walked  wearily  over  the  rough  road  to 
the  waiting  tenements. 

That  night  when  the  maid  shook  out  the 
folds  of  Miss  Mary's  silken  gown  under  the 
glare  of  the  brilliant  light,  it  looked  to  its 
wearer  gray  and  lustreless,  like  the  pale  cheeks 
and  dull  eyes  of  the  women  who  had  woven 
it  for  her. 

The  people  of  the  "  lovely "  suburb  were 
greatly  disturbed.  There  was  a  strike  at  the 
silk-mill  and  there  was  violence.  Breath- 
lessly the  "  lovely "  women  spoke  to  each 
other  of  Anarchists,  bombs  and  daggers. 
None  of  them  passed  by  the  silk-mill  while 
the  strike  lasted,  except  Miss  Mary.  She 
went  into  the  tenement  houses  unafraid,  and 


WHEN  MISS  MAR  Y  PASSES    i o  7 

by  her  sympathetic  questions  drew  forth  the 
story. 

In  broken  sentences  they  told  her  that  the 
hours  were  long,  and  the  wages  small ;  when 
one  bent  harder  to  the  task,  and  summoning 
all  of  will  and  strength,  earned  a  pittance 
more,  the  price  per  piece  was  cut,  until  there 
was  no  living  on  the  wage. 

It  was  true  that  men  came  from  the  neigh- 
bouring city  and  spoke  to  them  of  violence 
and  lawlessness,  but  they  did  not  listen. 
They  went  to  the  "  boss  "  and  asked  for  a 
better  wage  and  steadier  work,  but  he  told 
them  roughly  to  go  t<»  work  or  quit. 

Thousands  of  their  kind  were  landing  every 
day,  and  the  next  morning  their  places  in  the 
ugly  mill  were  taken  by  stolid  Polish  women, 
whose  clumsy  fingers  were  slowly  being 
broken  to  the  task. 

There  was  a  fight  and  that  was  what  dis- 
turbed the  "  lovely  "  people  in  the  "  lovely  " 
suburb.  They  heard  a  mixture  of  Slavic  and 
Latin  curses  and  they  were  told  of  bloodshed  ; 
for  the  Italians  fought  for  the  shelter  from 
which  they  were  driven  and  for  their  daily 


io8  The  BROKEN  WALL 


bread  which  they  had  no  more  opportunity 
to  earn. 

The  Poles  moved  into  the  tenements  out 
of  which  the  Italians  were  driven,  and  again 
the  whirr  of  wheels  began  ;  again  half-naked 
children  played  on  the  barren  hillside  and 
again  Miss  Mary  passed.  This  time  she 
knew  how  dark  were  the  mills  where  bright 
silks  were  woven,  how  pale  the  cheeks  of 
those  who  spun  the  silvery  strands,  and  she 
smiled  at  the  stolid  women  as  she  stopped  to 
play  with  the  children.  Every  time  her  car- 
riage came  near  they  crowded  around  it, 
calling :  "  Miss  Mary !    Miss  Mary  I " 

One  day  the  doors  f  the  tenements  did 
not  open  when  she  passed ;  for  on  most  of 
them  were  yellow  cards  which  meant  that  the 
death  angel  was  hovering  near,  and  must  be 
alone  with  his  victims. 

Miss  Mary  went  to  the  city  and  returned 
with  white-capped  nurses.  Skillful  physicians 
came  and  went  regularly,  but  in  spite  of  their 
efforts,  the  death  angel  did  his  work,  and  clay 
mounds  rose  on  the  potter's  field  and  little 
wooden  crosses  marked  the  resting  places 


WHEN  MISS  MARY  PASSES    1 09 

of  strange  children.  Although  there  was 
great  mourning  among  the  people  and  great 
fear,  the  wheels  still  turned,  the  spindles 
danced,  and  the  soft  silken  threads  were 
woven  into  cloth  of  joy. 

When  Miss  Mary  passed  again,  only  a  few 
children  were  playing  on  the  barren  hillside, 
not  far  from  the  yellow  mounds  over  which 
the  weeds  were  growing,  and  this  time  she 
went  into  the  tenements. 

The  women  wept  when  they  saw  her,  for 
they  remembered  how  the  children  loved  her, 
and  although  they  could  not  speak  her  lan- 
guage, her  tears  and  theirs  spoke  of  their 
common  woe. 

They  led  Miss  Mary  from  tenement  to 
tenement  and  showed  her  why  the  death 
angel  had  been  so  cruel  to  them.  The  drains 
were  all  clogged,  and  the  cellars  were  full  of 
sewage,  so  that  the  pestilence  had  full  sway 
and  walked  forth,  to-day  as  Diphtheria,  to- 
morrow as  Typhoid,  and  the  next  day  as 
Scarlet  Fever. 

Miss  Mary  went  to  the  "  boss "  and  this 
time  she  grew  angry  in  her  womanly  majesty 


1 10  The  BR  OKEN  WALL 


when  the  proud  master  spoke  of  those  "  dirty 
Polanders  who  loved  filth  and  delighted  to 
live  in  dirt." 

She  appealed  to  the  health  officer,  and  he 
came  and  went,  leaving  behind  him  odours  of 
disinfectants  ;  but  the  drains  were  left  twisted 
and  broken  and  the  filth  began  to  accumu- 
late again. 

Then  there  was  another  strike.  The  slug- 
gish Poles  were  maddened  by  the  shrinking 
wage,  and  the  growing  tasks,  and  one  morn- 
ing the  tenements  were  empty  and  the  mill 
was  silent  a  while. 

Again  Miss  Mary  passed  and  again  little 
children  were  playing  in  the  roadway  and  on 
the  hillside.  They  were  as  dirty  as  the  other 
children  had  been ;  but  these  were  beautiful 
and  friendly.  Great,  dark  Oriental  eyes  they 
had,  and  curly  hair.  They  spoke  a  strange, 
guttural  tongue,  and  they  called  each  other 
by  Bible  names  ;  for  they  all  had  come  from 
round  about  the  Holy  Hills  where  the  great 
revelations  were  made  to  men  ;  where  Holy 
Laws  were  let  down  from  Heaven  and 
where  the  shepherds  had  heard  the  angels 


WHEN  MISS  MAR  Y  PASSES    1 1 1 


sing  of  "  Peace  on  Earth  and  Good  Will  to 
Men." 

In  the  tenements  sad-eyed  women  began 
the  battle  against  poverty,  dirt  and  disease. 
This  time  Miss  Mary  told  their  plight  to  the 
"lovely"  women  of  the  suburb  and  they 
built  a  home  opposite  the  ugly  silk-mill. 
There  were  bright  rooms  with  baths  and 
games,  and  beautiful  pictures  on  the  walls, 
and  the  "  lovely  "  women  ministered  to  their 
sisters  who  wove  the  garments  of  splendour 
for  a  pittance  of  wage. 

One  of  these  '■  sisters  "  in  the  silk-mill  had  a 
mother  and  little  brothers  and  sisters  to  sup- 
port. She  was  strong  and  brave  and  her  fin- 
gers flew  nimbly  among  the  spindles.  When 
the  others  began  to  complain  she  said  :  "Be 
patient,  it  will  be  better ;"  but  the  wage  grew 
smaller  and  smaller  and  conditions  harder. 

One  day  I  walked  with  Miss  Mary  past  the 
silk-mill.  As  we  neared  the  tenements,  win- 
dows were  opened,  and  friendly  voices  cried  : 
"  How  do  you  do,  Miss  Mary?  "  She  called 
them  all  by  name,  and  smiled  back  a  cheery 
"  How  do  you  do  ?  " 


112  The  BR  OKEN  WALL 


The  children  came  running  out  of  the 
houses,  down  the  steep  hillside,  and  clinging 
to  her  skirts  cried:  "Come  to  my  house, 
Miss  Mary." 

"  Come  see  my  mother  !  "  "  Come  to  my 
house  and  see  the  new  baby  ! "  "  Come  to 
my  house  and  see  two  babies  1 "  She  was 
captured  by  the  children. 

In  the  first  place  we  entered,  the  mother  was 
standing  over  a  wash-tub  by  the  hot  stove 
in  a  small  kitchen;  "Miss  Mary!"  she 
said  with  deep  reverence.  She  quickly 
dried  her  soapy  hands,  and  made  her  obei- 
sance, then  led  us  into  the  one  other  room — 
living-room,  parlour  and  bedroom.  She 
drew  back  the  covers  of  the  bed,  saying : 
"  See,  Miss  Mary !  "  It  was  a  quilt  Miss 
Mary  had  given  her.  Then  she  pointed  to 
pretty,  dainty  curtains,  also  Miss  Mary's  gift. 
Everything  that  she  touched  was  connected 
with  the  sacred  name  of  Miss  Mary. 

We  went  to  the  home  of  the  one  baby, 
and  found  it  swaddled  in  clothing  Miss  Mary 
had  provided.  All  the  mother  felt  she  ex- 
pressed in  the  two  words  "  Miss  Mary,"  and 


WHEN  MISS  MARY  PASSES    1 1 3 

she  breathed  into  that  name  unspeakable 
gratitude. 

We  went  into  the  home  in  which  there  were 
two  babies ;  here,  even  as  there  was  a  double 
portion  of  responsibility  and  burden,  Miss 
Mary  had  brought  a  double  portion  of  gifts. 

From  house  to  house  we  went,  and  the 
"  Queen  of  Heaven  "  cannot  receive  homage 
more  genuine  than  this  Protestant  Virgin 
Mary  received  from  these  women  of  the  Holy 
Land. 

The  last  house  by  the  road  was  the  home 
of  the  brave  young  girl  who  had  tried  to 
teach  her  comrades  patience.  The  home  was 
clean  and  beautiful,  the  mother  smiled  at 
Miss  Mary  and  bowed  low  before  her  as  she 
kissed  the  hem  of  her  garment.  Then  the 
whistle  blew  and  the  breadwinner  came 
home.  She  threw  herself  exhausted  upon  a 
chair — not  without  greeting  her  Miss  Mary 
with  a  friendly  hand-shake.  "  It's  all  over," 
she  said  ;  "  to-morrow  the  strike  begins." 

She  could  not  hold  them  back  this  time. 
She  had  not  strength  enough  to  try.  Even 
she,  although  she  was  given  the  best  work, 


1 1 4  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 

could  not  make  more  than  seven  dollars  a 
week.  There  were  four  of  them  in  the  home, 
and  they  wanted  to  live  like  human  beings. 

"No,  Miss  Mary,  it's  all  up.  To-morrow 
I  am  going  to  New  York.  There  is  a  Syrian 
there  who  will  let  me  have  a  satchel  full  of 
fancy  work  and  I  shall  go  peddling.  I  know 
you  will  buy  of  me,  Miss  Mary,  and  your 
good  friends  will  buy  of  me.  I  don't  like  to 
do  it,  but  I  must." 

The  next  day  the  Syrians  struck,  and  no 
violence  followed.  The  sad-eyed  women  and 
children  moved  out,  no  one  knew  where. 
Regularly  they  come,  now  one,  now  another, 
with  heavy  satchels  upon  their  backs  to  the 
homes  in  the  "  lovely  "  suburb.  The  "  lovely  " 
ladies  buy  of  their  needy  sisters  and  they 
move  on  to  other  suburbs  where  their  plight 
is  not  known,  and  where  the  doors  are  often 
shut  in  their  faces. 

With  hope,  courage,  strength  and  cheer, 
another  group  of  men,  women  and  children 
has  come  from  Ellis  Island  to  the  station  of 
the  "  lovely  "  suburb.    Their  eyes  are  dazzled 


SOON  THERE  WILL  BE  SILENCE  WHICH  WILL  DEEPEN  INTO 
SULLENNESS  AND  END  IN  REVOLT" 


WHEN  MISS  MAR  Y  PASSES    1 1 5 

by  the  evidences  of  wealth  everywhere,  and 
they  dream  that  wealth  will  soon  be  theirs 
also.  Servian  women  old  and  young  are 
now  working  in  the  silk-mill,  winding  silvery 
strands  and  weaving  endless  yards  of  shining 
stuffs,  for  garments  of  splendour. 

Little  children  are  playing  upon  the  barren 
hillsides,  forgetting  their  villages  by  the 
Danube,  set  in  the  midst  of  gardens  of  roses, 
and  fields  of  waving  maize.  In  the  tene- 
ments, mothers  begin  to  wash  and  cook  and 
bear  children.  In  the  silk-mill  young  girls 
who  have  just  begun  their  task  are  singing  as 
they  work,  but  soon  there  will  be  silence 
which  will  deepen  into  sullenness  and  end  in 
revolt. 

Miss  Mary  comes  and  goes ;  but  she  feels 
the  hopelessness  and  the  endlessness  of  her 
task.  What  can  she  do  for  these  who  come 
to  weave  our  pleasure  garments,  yet  must 
be  clothed  by  cast-off  garments  of  charity  ? 

She  can  feed  this  one  or  that  one  when  the 
mill  is  shut  down  ;  she  can  look  after  foul 
drains  and  ill-smelling  cellars,  and  try  to 
teach  rapacious  landlords  their  responsibility 


1 16  The  BROKEN  WALL 


for  the  public  health — but  the  wrong  itself  re- 
mains unchanged.  It  is  all  there  just  "  as  it 
was  in  the  beginning — is  now  and  ever  shall 

be." 

When  I  suggested  Browning's  Pippa,  Miss 
Mary  said,  with  an  air  of  finality  born  of 
despair : 

"  I  know  that  '  God's  in  His  Heaven,'  and 
therefore  I  also  know  that  '  All's ' — not — 
'  right  with  the  world.'  " 


VII 


Dobra  1  Bridget 

HE  did  not  talk  to  me  longer  than  ten 
minutes.  She  talked  much  longer. 
He  spoke  in  broken  English  ;  strong, 
heavy  words,  which  came  slowly  like  sledge- 
hammer blows.  She  spoke  fluently,  collo- 
quially ;  in  such  language  as  one  might  hear 
anywhere,  from  the  basement  of  a  depart- 
ment store  to  the  loft  of  a  sweat  shop,  socially, 
and  from  Pittsburg  to  Chicago,  geographic- 
ally. 

He  was  standing  by  the  covered  hatchway 
of  the  steerage,  in  a  sunny  although  some- 
what malodorous  spot,  trying  to  mend  a 
broken  cigar ;  I  rescued  him  from  the  hope- 
less task  by  offering  him  one  of  such  size  and 
colour  that  he  lifted  his  hat  to  me  with  much 
grace,  no  doubt  suspecting  behind  the  gift  a 
wealthy  giver. 

There  were  two  unmistakable  signs  of  his 

1  Good. 
117 


1 1 8  The  BR  OK  EN  WA  LL 


having  been  in  the  United  States  before. 
The  sleeve  of  a  clean  under  vest  had  crept 
out  over  his  wrist,  and  he  wore  shoes,  broad 
soled  and  well  formed.  These  two  symbols 
of  new  standards  of  living  were  so  significant 
that  one  might  indeed  stop  to  reflect  on  their 
far-reaching  effect  upon  the  world. 

This  is  what  he  said ;  not  exactly  all  he 
said ;  for  half  of  his  vocabulary  consisted  of 
certain  picturesque  words  which  Anglo-Saxon 
literary  standards  decree  should  be  printed  in 
dashes.    In  substance  he  said  : 

"  Me  go  America — sick  year.  Modder  he 
cry — say  :  '  No  go  America ' — I  say,  '  Go 
America.  Good-bye.' 

"  Work  mills — lots  money — lots  meat,  lots 
beer,  whiskey.  No  Polish  girl.  W ork  to  Irish- 
man— nice  man — Catolic,  same  me.  Say  : 
'  Joe,  hella  to  fellow  mit  da  drink,  stop  drink.' 

"  I  say  :  '  Workata  lot — money — go  church 
Sunday.  Notin  to  do  —  drink  after  go 
church.'  Irishman  say,  '  After  church  go  a 
mit  mine  house.'    I  go  him  house. 

"  Irishman  got  a  girl.  Me  work  mills,  lots 
money,  lots  meat,  no  beer.    Money  go  bank, 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  119 

go  church  Sunday,  no  go  saloon.  Go  Irish- 
man house. 

"  Ask  Irishman  girl  marry  me.  She  laugh. 
Say  :  '  Marry  Polack  ?  ' 

"  I  say  :  '  Me  love  same  Irishman — Americ 
—  Sheeny  —  Dago  —  Dutch  —  Polack  —  all 
same,  all  man.  America,  Catolic,  Pravo- 
Slav  (Greek  Orthodox),  Salvatch  (Salvation 
Army), — all  same  God,  all  same  man.  God 
love  Irish,  same  love  Polack — same  love 
Dago — same  love  Sheeny — all  same  love. 
Me  bad,  same  bad  Irish, — same  bad  Dago — 
same  bad  Sheeny — marry  me  ? ' 

"  She  say  :  '  Ask  old  man  ! 

"  Me  say  :  '  Old  man — work  mill — lots 
money,  lots  meat,  go  church,  no  whiskey. 
Irish  girl  marry  Polack  ?  ' 

"  He  say  :  '  Ask  Bridget.' 

"  She  say  :  '  Ask  old  man.' 

"  Old  man  say  :  '  All  right.' 

"  Bridget  say  :  1  All  right.' 

"  License  man  say  :  '  All  right' 

"  Priest  say  :  '  Polack  and  American  girl 
no  good  marry.  Polack  drink,  Polack  beat 
wife, — much  whiskey.' 


120 


The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  I  say,  '  No  drink — no  beat  wife.  Jesus, 
Maria  and  Joseph  1'  Then  priest  say:  'All 
right' 

"  Polacks  laugh  wedding  out — laugh  car- 
riage out — no  whiskey,  no  fight — wedding  no 
good — all  right. 

"  My  old  man  write — old  country :  '  No 
good  marry  America  girl — modder  he  cry — 
he  say.  Marry  one  year — modder  die.'  Old 
man  write  come  home — go  home. 

"  Fadder  see  Bridget — no  good.  He  say, 
'  No  good — fine  hands — fine  dresses — no 
work  hard — no  wife  Polack.' 

"  I  say,  1  All  right,  old  man — my  wife.' 
He  say  :  '  All  right.' 

"  Stay  one  mont,  stay  two  mont,  stay  tree 
mont. 

"  Fadder  say  :  '  No  good  America — girl  no 
good — he  cry — he  say  no  drink  whiskey — 
no  beat  wife — no  work  hard — no  good — go 
back  America.' 

"  I  say  :  '  All  right,  old  man — me  go  back.' 

"  Old  man  say  :  '  Stay  old  country — send 
back  America  wife.' 

"  I  say  :  '  Go  hell — my  wife.' 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  121 


"  He  say  :  ■  Go  back  all.' 

"  I  say  :  1  All  right — go  back.' 

"  Stay  four  mont,  five  mont,  old  man  say  : 
'  Nice  wife  America — nice  wife — clean  good 
wife — make  no  trouble,  talk  no  trouble — 
make  women  clean,  make  babies  clean.' 

"  I  say  :  '  All  right'  Bridget  sick — say 
America  go — I  say  :  '  All  right,  America  go.' 

"  Old  man  cry — say  :  '  Stay  old  country.' 

"  I  say  :  '  No,  America  wife  sick — Polish 
grub  no  good — go  back  America.' 

"  '  All  right,'  say  old  man. 

"  Go  away  America — old  man  cry — say  : 
■  Go  along  America.' 

"  '  No,'  I  say  ;  '  old  man  no  good  America. 
— America  go  hella — go  fast — old  man  slow. 
All  right.  Good-bye.'  Women  cry — childer 
cry.  Old  man  cry  much.  Go  cars  Hamburg 
— go  ship  Hamburg — there  ship — there  old 
man — say,  '  Go  along  America.' 

"  I  say:  '  All  right' 

"  He  say  :  '  Go  along  Dobra  Bridget.'  " 
That  was  the  end  of  his  story.    He  breathed 
like  a  tired  man,  for  the  effort  of  speaking 
English  was  great,  and  being  unemotional, 


1 2  2  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 


the  words  were  hard  and  heavy  ;  while  the 
pain,  whatever  pain  he  felt,  was  unexpressed 
and  therefore  hurt  the  more. 

Her  story  was  longer  ;  not  because  she  was 
Irish  and  a  woman,  but  because  hers  was  the 
longer  story,  and  the  sadder.  Not  only  has 
a  man  fewer  difficulties  to  overcome  in  break- 
ing social  and  racial  barriers,  but  this  man 
had  gone  up,  and  she  had  gone  down,  much 
further  down  than  she  knew,  when  she  mar- 
ried him. 

I  first  saw  her  sitting  alone,  or  as  much 
alone  as  one  could  be  on  that  overcrowded 
deck,  where  a  sheltered  place  was  at  a  pre- 
mium ;  for  the  first  symptoms  of  seasickness 
had  manifested  themselves.  The  passengers 
were  reeling  at  all  angles  in  all  sorts 
of  strange  groupings.  Jews,  Roumanians, 
Poles,  Russians,  Slovaks,  Croatians,  a  heter- 
ogeneous mass,  never  before  so  close  together 
as  in  this  levelling,  all-embracing,  mysterious 
disease. 

Yesterday,  the  sun  was  shining  ;  the  sea 
was  low  and  spirits  were  high.  Accordions 
and  mouth-organs  kept  alive  national  differ- 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  123 

ences  by  their  strange  music ;  a  bagpipe 
was  heard  in  one  corner  and  a  gusla  in  an- 
other ;  German  girls  were  waltzing,  Polish 
girls  danced  a  polka ;  Croatian  men  joined 
hands  in  the  Kola  while  the  Jews,  with  whom 
it  was  a  holy  day,  prayed  loudly  and  unctu- 
ously, apart  from  the  Gentiles. 

To-day — all  were  one  in  their  approaching 
misery — all  except  this  woman  who  looked 
through  the  mist  at  the  veiled  sun  beginning 
his  westward  journey  towards  their  common 
goal. 

***** 

It  is  not  so  easy  as  once  it  was  to  begin 
conversation  with  a  woman  in  the  steerage. 
Women  are  warned  against  men,  and  every 
approach  is  met  by  suspicion. 

"  Not  a  very  nice  day,  is  it  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  answered  briefly. 

"  Where  are  you  going  ?  " 

"  Where  everybody  else  is  going,"  she  re- 
plied. 

"To  New  York?"  There  was  no  answer. 
:<You  are  Irish,"  I  said,  looking  at  her 


1 24  The  BR  OKEN  WALL 

beautiful  red  hair,  caught  by  the  wind  and 
tossed  in  picturesque  disorder  above  the  veil 
which  covered  it. 

"  You  bet  I  am  Irish  ! "  She  said  it  in  a 
grim  sort  of  way,  a  savage  joy  rising  in  her 
gray  eyes. 

"  You  are  not  from  New  York,  you  are 
from  the  West." 

"  You  bet  I  am  from  the  West ! "  Then 
her  face  grew  sunny  for  a  moment.  "  Yes,  I 
am  from  the  West.    How  did  you  know  ?  " 

"  Well,  I  am  a  guesser.  Let  me  make  an- 
other guess  or  two.  You  are  from  Pennsyl- 
vania, not  far  from  Pittsburg ;  your  first  name 
is  Bridget ;  your  last  name  isn't  Irish,  and  I 
can  pronounce  it  better  than  you  can."  The 
first  attack  was  successfully  carried  out. 
When  I  pronounced  her  name  as  it  ought  to 
be  spoken  and  more  musically  than  she  had 
ever  heard  it,  she  capitulated. 

"  How  do  you  manage  it  ?  Show  me — I 
am  from  Missouri."  So  I  gave  her  a  lesson 
in  pronouncing  Polish. 

I  have  always  found  language  lessons  the 
best  means  of  beginning  interviews  on  board 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  125 

of  ship  and  elsewhere.  I  told  her  that  I  had 
met  her  husband.  She  tried  hard  to  apolo- 
gize for  him  but  when  she  discovered  my  at- 
titude of  mind  she  decided  to  tell  me  her  side 
of  the  story. 

"  The  old  man  brought  him  home  from 
church — to  keep  him  from  drinking,  he  said. 
He  has  been  daffy  on  saving  men  from  drink 
ever  since  he  joined  the  St.  Matthew's  society. 
The  boy  stayed.  I  tell  you  he  was  a  sticker. 
Talk  about  glue !  You  couldn't  get  rid  of 
him  except  by  pushing  him  out  of  the  house, 
and  then  he'd  hang  around  like  a  dog  until 
long  past  midnight. 

"  Say,  those  Polanders  are  stayers  !  They 
don't  talk  much — but  they  hang  on  like  beg- 
gar's-lice.  He  didn't  seem  to  understand 
when  I  tried  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  he  always 
understood  too  much  when  I  was  nice  to 
him,  which  wasn't  often. 

"  When  he  asked  me  to  marry  him  I  was 
mad,  stark  mad — regular  bughouse — I  told 
him  to  go  to  the  devil — and  he  went  to  the 
old  man  and  asked  him  to  let  me  marry  him. 
The  old  man  told  him  to  go  to  the  hot  place, 


126  The  BROKEN  WALL 


and  he  came  to  me  and  he  said  the  old  man 
said  all  right. 

"  The  old  man  and  me  tossed  him  back 
and  forth  to  wear  him  out  and  make  him 
quit ;  but  he  seemed  to  enjoy  the  game.  He 
stayed  in  it  to  the  end  and  won  out.  That's 
the  way  with  men  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end  of  the  chapter.  He  was  a  nice  fellow, 
better  than  the  usual  run  of  Polacks,  and  I 
understood  that  his  people  were  well  off. 
Anyway  we  were  married. 

"  No,  I  never  regretted  it.  I  am  game,  you 
know.  Marriage  is  a  lottery  and  I  drew  a 
Polander.  I  shan't  go  back  on  him.  No 
Reno  in  mine.  I  am  a  Catholic,  and  I  took 
him  for  better  or  for  worse,  and  I  guess  it's 
for  both,  whatever  man  you  get. 

"  When  he  told  me  his  mother  had 
died,  and  his  father  wanted  him  to  come 
home,  I  was  glad  to  go.  I  always  wanted 
to  go  to  Europe  and  now  my  chance  had 
come. 

"  It  was  lots  of  fun  on  the  ship.  The  sea 
was  good  to  us  and  we  travelled  second  cabin 
like  regular  swells.    He  didn't  want  to  go 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  127 

that  way,  but  I  learned  him  how  to  eat 
proper  and  we  got  along  fine. 

"  Didn't  I  open  my  eyes  though  when  we 
saw  the  old  sod  across  the  pond  ?  I  know 
now  why  they  love  the  green.  There  isn't 
such  a  green  anywhere  in  the  world. 

"  It  was  all  awfully  fine — all  of  it — till  we 
came  to  Poland.  We  went  eighteen  miles  in 
a  wagon  over  a  road  so  dusty  that  we  both 
looked  like  the  men  do  in  the  cement  mill. 
I  tell  you  I  saw  everything,  although  my 
eyes  smarted — the  funny  men  and  women 
and  their  queer  clothes.  They  looked  at  me 
and  lifted  their  hats  and  made  low  bows.  Of 
course  I  couldn't  say  a  word  to  them  and  I 
have  a  backbone  as  stiff  as  a  poker. 

"The  village  where  Joe  was  born  is  the 
bummest  thing  you  ever  saw.  Just  one 
street  and  not  a  blade  of  grass  or  a  tree  in  it. 
Joe  had  tried  to  tell  me  that  it  wasn't  extra 
fine,  but  say,  that  town  is  the  limit  on  every- 
thing out ;  dust,  dirt  and  fleas.  Fleas !  say, 
I  never  knew  what  they  were.  I  don't  think 
I  ever  saw  one  before  in  my  life.  I  thought 
at  first  that  a  pin  of  mine  had  gone  astray  ; 


128  The  BR OKEN  WALL 


then  I  began  to  think  little  bits  of  hot  coal 
had  fallen  down  my  back.  Then  Joe  told 
me  it  was  fleas.  Well,  I  tell  you,  they  trav- 
elled some.  They  are  a  regular  '  now  you 
have  them  and  now  you  don't '  kind  of  bug — 
but  the  feeling  is  always  there. 

"  Eating !  say,  they  eat  bread  so  hard  that 
every  time  you  eat  a  bite  you  think  you're 
laying  the  corner-stone  of  a  church.  Cab- 
bage enough  to  make  you  think  you're  a 
regular  sauerkraut  barrel. 

"  No,  I  couldn't  eat  anything,  or  drink 
anything  for  a  long  time.  The  water 
smelled  of  sewerage.  I  don't  know  how 
those  people  live.  Joe,  he  tried  to  learn  them 
something,  but  they  laughed  at  him  and  at 
me. 

"  Joe  had  told  me  that  when  I  saw  his  old 
man  I  must  kiss  his  hand  and  that  I  must 
wait  till  he  sat  down  before  I  did ;  so  I 
thought  I'd  see  a  regular  swell.  He  was 
standing  in  front  of  his  house  when  we  arrived 
and  his  head  reached  above  the  door ;  not 
that  he  was  particularly  tall  but  the  door  was 
so  low.    He  wore  a  sheepskin  coat  which 


DOBRA  BRIDGET  129 

you  could  smell  a  mile  off,  he  was  barefooted 
and  his  feet  were  regular  dirty.  Well,  I 
couldn't  have  kissed  his  hand,  not  before  I 
had  manicured  it  first,  or  given  it  a  regular 
Monday  boilin'  washing. 

"  We  didn't  gee  from  the  first.  We  were  all 
to  sleep  in  one  room  ;  the  windows  were  shut 
tight  and  when  I  tried  to  open  one  at  night 
there  was  a  regular  row  about  it.  I  don't 
know  what  the  old  man  said  but  he  just 
jawed  Joe  all  the  time  and  he  told  me  to  take 
off  my  shoes  and  stockings  and  corsets  and 
go  out  in  the  field  and  work.  I  told  him  I'd 
see  him  in  Jersey  first. 

"  We  had  a  regular  cat  and  dog  time  of  it 
for  a  while,  then  things  grew  a  mite  better.  I 
guess  he  began  to  understand  me  and  I  be- 
gan to  understand  him.  Then  the  old  man 
began  calling  me  Dobra  Bridget,  but  soon 
after  that  I  had  to  pack  up  and  leave. 

"  Nop,  it  wasn't   because  the  old  man 

scolded  ;  I  got  used  to  that,  but  "  there 

she  hesitated  and  looked  at  the  Sun  dipping 
into  the  ocean,  as  if  thirsty  after  the  day's 
journey  across  the  worlds. 


130  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  That's  the  way  I  began  to  feel  for 
America — just  that  way,"  and  she  pointed  to 
the  great  disk,  fast  disappearing  over  the 
western  edge  of  the  sea. 

"  Homesick — I  tell  you,  homesick  is  no 
name  for  it ;  and  then  we  are  expecting  a  boy 
and  he  must  be  born  in  the  U.  S.  A.  If  I 
live  I'll  learn  him  how  to  love  that  country. 
Say,  there  is  only  one  country  to  be  born  in 
and  only  one  country  to  die  in.  It's  finer 
even  than  Ireland — finer  than  any  country  in 
the  world,  you  bet !  " 

She  rose  to  go  down,  and  as  I  helped  her 
across  the  crowded  deck  to  the  steep  steps 
of  the  steerage,  an  old  man  standing  in  the 
entrance  pushed  me  aside,  and  led  her  care- 
fully down.  He  looked  at  me  as  if  I  were  an 
intruder,  and  I  heard  him  say  to  his  daugh- 
ter-in-law, more  gently  than  I  ever  heard  any 
Polish  peasant  speak  to  a  woman :  "  Dobra 
Bridget,  all  right." 


VIII 


Hot,  Through  Many  Generations 
LL  the  man  had  to  do  was  to  push 


the  immigrants  in  the  direction  in 


which  they  were  to  go.  Occasion- 
ally he  talked  Manhattan  Island  English; 
but  none  of  those  for  whom  he  lifted  the  gate 
and  pointed  the  way  understood  what  he 
said.  He  merely  directed  the  stream  at  Ellis 
Island  after  the  inspectors  had  done  their 
work. 

A  thrust  between  the  shoulder-blades,  down 
a  dark,  forbidding  staircase,  meant  that  the 
way  into  the  city  of  New  York  was  clear. 
Sometimes,  I  am  sure,  this  thrust  between  the 
shoulders  was  an  impatient  one  ;  for  even  the 
human  automaton  knew  that  the  island  had 
its  full  measure  of  people,  "  pressed  down, 
shaken  together  and  running  over." 

A  vigorous  push  on  the  left  shoulder  di- 
rected  the   strangers  towards  the  hopeful 


132  The  BROKEN  WALL 

west,  and  none  needed  to  complain  that  the 
direction  was  given  ungently. 

Those  who  were  sent  to  the  right,  into  a 
safe  enclosure,  the  man  pitied  ;  for  that  little 
six  by  ten  room  was  a  cul  de  sac.  There  was 
just  space  enough  in  it  for  the  thousands  to 
turn  around  and  again  face  the  eastern  in- 
stead of  the  western  Sun. 

He  was  human  after  all,  this  automaton, 
and  when  he  directed  a  group  of  dark- 
skinned  people  towards  that  port  of  lost 
hope,  I  heard  him  say :  "  That's  a  great 
bunch  of  Dagos.  What  the  deuce  can  be 
the  matter  with  them?"  That  the  phrase 
was  peppered  by  oaths  made  no  difference  ; 
the  man  had  plenty  of  feeling,  but  a  limited 
vocabulary. 

Indeed  it  was  a  "  great  bunch  of  Dagos," 
only  they  were  not  Dagos.  They  looked  to 
me  Oriental :  Syrians,  Armenians  perhaps ; 
but  I  heard  the  patriarch  of  the  group  say  : 
"  Furchtet  euch  nicht,  meine  Kinder.  Wir 
sind  in  Gottes  Hixnden." 

Then  I  knew  that  they  were  Germans,  by 
speech  at  least,  and  I  perceived  by  the  se- 


HOT,  Through  Many  GENERATIONS  133 

renity  of  their  faces,  and  the  way  in  which 
they  bore  themselves  through  the  trying 
ordeal  which  followed,  that  they  were  the 
children  of  God. 

"  If  they  are  Dutch,"  the  automaton  said, 

"  it  must  have  been  d  d  hot  where  they 

were  living." 

Indeed  it  was  very  hot,  where  they  were 
living ;  for  the  ship's  manifest  showed  that 
they  came  from  Constanca,  Roumania.  How 
they  came  to  live  by  the  Black  Sea  and 
now  were  going  to  North  Dakota,  and  why 
the  children  showed  unmistakably  the  in- 
fusion of  Oriental  blood,  the  patriarch  told 
me,  while  seated  on  a  piece  of  baggage  in 
the  waiting-room  at  Ellis  Island.  Around 
him  were  wife,  and  child,  and  grandchildren, 
wearied  and  half  starved  after  weeks  of  jour- 
neying ;  yet  all  of  them  serene  and  happy, 
as  behooved  the  children  of  God. 

"  My  forefathers,"  the  patriarch  said — I  wish 
I  were  able  to  record  his  rich,  unspoiled,  me- 
lodious, sixteenth-century  German — "  lived 
in  or  near  Salzburg  at  the  time  when  God 
sent  the  great  Dr.  Martin  Luther  to  preach 


134  The  BROKEN  WALL 

the  Gospel  of  Grace,  and  to  give  to  men  the 
uncorrupted  word  of  God  in  their  mother 
tongue.  They  must  have  been  rich  in  this 
world's  goods  for  they  owned  a  Bible. 
"Mother,"  he  said,  "show  it  to  the  brother." 

The  wife  drew  from  the  bottom  of  a  soiled 
bag  a  book,  one  of  those  volumes  which 
thrills  you  by  the  character  of  its  binding,  its 
mighty  clasps  and  its  rich  ornamentation.  A 
holy  book  indeed  1 

For  its  possession  and  for  faith  in  its  teach- 
ing his  ancestors,  nearly  two  hundred  3^ears 
ago,  left  the  valley  of  the  Salza,  left  home — a 
peasant  home  with  rich  traditions, — left  a 
country  they  loved,  and  went  to  the  plains  of 
Southern  Russia.  There,  on  the  shores  of 
the  Volga,  the  patriarch  was  born,  there  he 
married  a  German  maiden  from  a  neigh- 
bouring colony,  whose  forefathers,  too,  had 
left  their  homes,  for  freedom  to  worship 
God. 

They  reared  their  children  in  the  faith  of 
their  fathers,  and  lived  in  peace  until  about  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  when  the  Russian 
government  withdrew  the  privileges  granted 


HOT,  Through  Many  GENERATIONS  135 

these  Christian  colonists  and  began  drafting 
their  sons  into  the  army. 

To  kill  a  human  being,  whether  in  a 
quarrel  between  individuals  or  nations,  was 
to  them  disobedience  to  the  Word  of  God, 
for  the  possession  of  which  their  forefathers 
had  suffered  ;  and  they  defied  the  Czar  to 
obey  God.  The  patriarch  and  his  sons  were 
thrown  into  prison,  and  liberated  only  on 
their  promise  to  emigrate.  Centuries  after 
their  forefathers  left  their  home  in  Germany, 
they  had  to  leave  their  Russian  home  and  for 
much  the  same  cause. 

In  simple  language,  in  a  calm  voice,  he 
told  me  of  their  leaving  the  little  village,  the 
church  and  the  churchyard ;  of  leaving  be- 
hind them  the  fields  he  and  his  ancestors 
had  torn  from  the  surrounding  swamps  of 
the  Volga,  carrying  with  them  nothing  but 
the  Holy  Book,  now  lying  heavily  upon  my 
knees,  and  opening  almost  automatically  to 
its  most  worn  page,  in  the  Gospel  of  Luke. 
"  Fear  not,  little  flock,  for  it  is  your  Father's 
good  pleasure  to  give  you  the  kingdom." 
The  lower  edge  of  the  page  was  worn  off,  and 


136  The  BROKEN  WALL 

the  whole  margin  discoloured  ;  evidently  it 
had  been  the  comfort  page  of  many  genera- 
tions. 

I  closed  the  book  and  was  about  to  hand 
it  back  to  the  mother ;  but  she  said  with  true 
feminine  pride,  "  Look  at  the  pages  in  front 
and  in  the  back  and  you  will  know  about  our 
ancestors."  The  old  man  chided  her  for  her 
worldly  pride,  but  I  opened  the  book  as 
directed.  In  crude  but  distinct  lettering  was 
written  the  name  of  the  first  owner,  Johannes 
Krieger,  January  3,  1636. 

"Johannes  Krieger,  his  lawfully  wedded 
wife  Eva,  their  children  Hansl,  Thomas  and 
Grete  were  driven  from  their  home  by  the 
imperial  decree  in  the  reign  of  Ferdinand  the 
second,  and  found  a  new  habitation  in  the 
colony  Bethania,  Russia." 

Records  of  births  and  deaths  follow  until 
the  year  1886.  Then  another  Johannes 
Krieger  wrote : 

"Johannes  Krieger  and  his  wife  Martha, 
born  Woolf,  driven  from  their  home  Bethania 
with  four  children,  one  daughter  and  three 
sons,  born  to  them  in  holy  wedlock.  Jo- 


HOT,  Through  Many  GENERATIONS  137 

hannes  aged  twenty-four,  Andreas  nineteen, 
and  Bartholomeus  eighteen,  died  on  the  way 
to  their  new  home  after  being  severely  beaten 
by  Kossacks.  They  died  testifying  to  their 
faith  in  God's  Holy  Word." 

The  last  record  was  made  in  Asia  Minor, 
and  was  written  in  Armenian.  The  mother 
explained  that  after  leaving  Russia  they 
went  to  Asia  Minor,  and  there  the  daughter 
married  an  Armenian,  the  father  of  the  dark- 
eyed  children. 

I  gave  the  Bible  back  to  the  grandmother, 
who  was  the  guardian  of  this  treasure,  and  I 
took  the  grandchildren  on  my  knees.  As  I 
looked  into  their  large  dark  eyes,  and  patted 
their  flaxen  locks,  their  mother  told  me  of 
the  persecutions  she  and  her  husband  suf- 
fered from  the  Turks  ;  how  she  was  widowed 
and  her  children  orphaned,  how  finally  they 
found  a  home  on  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea, 
tilling  the  soil  of  their  landlords,  the  pleasure 
loving  Roumanians. 

"The  Lord's  ways  are  inscrutable,"  the  old 
man  said,  after  the  daughter  had  finished. 
"  Man  is  born  for  suffering,  and  his  days  are 


138  The  BROKEN  WALL 

full  of  trouble;  but  the  Apostle  has  said  that 
'the  sufferings  of  this  present  time  cannot 
be  compared  with  the  glory  which  shall  be 
revealed  in  us.' 

"Why  did  we  leave  Roumania?  Human 
government  is  full  of  errors  and  it  is  not  for 
me  to  find  fault.  A  decree  went  forth  from 
Bucharest  that  the  land  must  not  be  leased 
to  strangers ;  and  so  we  had  to  leave,  after 
disposing  of  our  earthly  goods. 

"  The  agent  who  sold  us  the  tickets  sent 
us  on  the  Danube  to  Vienna.  Eight  days 
we  travelled  up-stream,  unsheltered,  on  the 
deck  of  a  steamer,  suffering  from  rain  and 
cold.  When  we  came  to  the  great  city  of 
Vienna  we  were  besieged  by  many  people 
who  wanted  to  lead  us  hither  and  thither ; 
but  we  committed  ourselves  to  the  guidance 
of  God. 

"  Three  days  we  were  on  the  train  which 
brought  us  to  Hamburg,  and  we  had  to  wait 
nine  days  before  they  led  us  onto  a  big  ship. 
Ten  days  we  were  on  the  great  ocean  among 
many  people,  and  through  storm  and  fog 
God  has  led  us. 


HOT,  Through  Many  GENERATIONS  139 

"Two  hundred  years  ago  some  of  my 
ancestors  who  suffered  in  the  great  persecu- 
tion came  to  this  America.  What  has  be- 
come of  their  descendants  I  know  not.  The 
tradition  in  our  family  was  that  they  went  to 
a  colony  called  Pennsylvania.  We  also  heard 
that  they  were  prospered  by  God  in  earthly 
things  and  found  full  freedom  for  their  faith." 

The  old  man  shook  his  head.  "  Yes,"  he 
said,  "  your  country  must  have  changed  ; 
for  when  we  reached  the  harbour  and  saw 
the  statue  of  Liberty,  a  man  who  wore  the 
symbol  of  your  country  on  his  cap,  came  on 
the  ship  to  examine  us.  He  took  me  by  the 
arm,  sore  from  vaccination,  and  dragged 
me  before  another  man  who  also  examined 
me,  and  because  I  did  not  remove  my  hat 
quickly  enough,  he  knocked  it  off  of  my 
head.  My  wife  and  daughter  and  the  grand- 
children were  driven  as  if  they  were  cattle, 
not  human  beings. 

"It  is  true  there  were  many  of  us,"  he  said 
apologetically ;  "  the  day  was  hot,  and  our 
steps  slow  and  heavy  for  we  were  wearied 
from  our  journey.    We  lay  a  day  and  a 


140  The  BROKEN  WALL 

night  in  the  great  harbour ;  we  saw  the  huge 
buildings  of  the  city,  the  many  lights  and 
heard  the  noises.  We  could  not  sleep  ;  we 
prayed  that  God  might  lead  us  safely  to  our 
new  home  in  North  Dakota. 

"  You  know  the  rest,  how  they  detained 
us,  how  they  questioned  me  about  my  earthly 
possessions,  and  how  they  shook  their  heads 
because  I  had  but  little  gold  ;  for  I  paid 
many  thousands  of  francs  to  get  the  tickets, 
and  the  journey  was  long  and  the  bread 
dear. 

"  They  asked  me  if  I  did  not  want  to  ap- 
peal to  the  government  in  Washington,  and 
I  told  them  how  for  over  two  hundred  years 
my  forefathers  suffered  from  unjust  rulers 
and  governments,  and  that  the  only  right- 
eous government  was  in  Heaven,  and  to  that 
I  have  appealed." 

***** 

The  court  at  Ellis  Island,  although  full  of 
error,  because  it  is  fallible,  opened  the  gate 
of  the  port  of  lost  hope,  and  the  human 
automaton  pushed  Johannes  Krieger  and  his 


HOT,  Through  Many  GENERATIONS  141 

descendants  gently  on  the  left  shoulder 
towards  the  hopeful  west. 

As  they  disappeared  he  said  to  me :  "  You 
say  they  are  Germans  ?  It  must  have  been 
very  hot  where  they  were  living." 

"Yes,"  I  replied,  "it  was  very  hot  through 
many  generations." 


IX 


The  Fellowship  of  Suffering 


WALK  from  one  end  of  Manhattan 


Island  to  the  other  is  equivalent  to  a 


round  the  world  tour,  minus  the 
bother  of  customs  officials.  One  misses  also 
the  sight  of  strange  architecture,  the  ever 
fascinating  soldiers,  the  odd  vehicles,  and  all 
those  other  external  things  which  divide  races 
and  nationalities,  and  make  travelling  such 
an  attractive  pastime. 

The  people  themselves,  especially  that  class 
of  them  which  escapes  one  in  following  the 
beaten  path,  are  on  Manhattan  Island  ;  in 
such  numbers  indeed,  that  the  few  Americans 
who  travel  on  the  motor  'bus  up  and  down 
Fifth  Avenue,  and  those  who  spend  part  of 
their  nomadic  existence  on  that  highway, 
seem  like  strangers  in  this  their  own  city. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  this  strong,  native  race 
which  seems  to  dominate  the  others.  These 


The  FELLOWSHIP  of  SUFFERING  143 

bits  of  Syria,  Armenia,  China,  Russia,  Italy^ 
Bohemia,  Hungary,  Poland,  France  and  Ger- 
many through  which  I  often  pass,  have  hover- 
ing over  them  vital  influences,  which  threaten 
speedily  to  mold  and  shape  their  inhabitants 
into  Americans. 

Only  where  one  leaves  the  avenues  and 
street  corners,  with  their  news  stands  of 
Americanized  Yiddish  or  Italian  newspapers, 
the  thoroughly  American  soda  water  foun- 
tain and  the  still  more  native  saloon,  and 
ascends  the  dark  stairs  of  some  tenement 
house,  or  comes  into  a  locality  where  hun- 
dreds of  people  from  the  same  village  or 
town  breathe  the  same  polluted  back-yard  air 
— only  then  does  one  realize  how  vitally  this 
bit  of  the  New  World  is  connected  with  the 
Old.  Only  then  does  one  realize  how  closely 
traditions,  race  habits,  and  local  customs 
cling,  and  how  small  is  the  world  of  these 
peoples  who  live  in  this  large  city,  upon  our 
great  new  continent. 

A  few  years  ago  in  the  parlour  of  a  tiny 
flat  in  a  certain  house  on  Avenue  B,  New 
York,  there  was,  in  spirit,  a  town  of  four 


144  The  BROKEN  WALL 

thousand  inhabitants  in  Northern  Hungary. 
At  least  it  was  to  this  parlour  that  its  virile,  ex- 
patriated youths  came  for  news,  and  brought 
their  own  tidings  of  success  and  failure. 
There,  courtships  were  encouraged,  and 
matches  made,  and  there  every  Sunday 
afternoon,  the  old  home  town  with  all  its  in- 
habitants was  passed  in  review.  There,  as 
everywhere,  only  bad  news  was  really  news  ; 
conversation  usually  began  in  this  way  : 

"  What  is  the  news  from  home  ?  " 

"What  shall  the  news  be?"  an  awkward, 
red-haired  youth  answered,  with  a  shrug  of 
the  shoulders.  "  My  cousin  what  keeps  the 
notion  store  is  bankrupt.  He  has  made 
nothing  out  of  it,  and  he  will  be  lucky  if  he 
escapes  imprisonment.  Then  he  will  come 
to  America  with  a  wife  and  four  little  chil- 
dren, and  I'll  have  to  help  him  find  a  job. 

"  Aaron  Schindler  what  is  in  the  army 
suicided  himself.  The  good  for  nothing ! 
Got  into  debt,  and  shot  himself ;  such  a  fool ! " 

There  is  a  loud  outcry ;  a  girl  grows  pale 
and  staggers  towards  the  speaker.  There  are 
anger  and  grief  in  her  voice  as  she  asks  : 


The  FELLOWSHIP  of  SUFFERING  145 

"  Who  told  you  ?  How  do  you  know  ?  Why 
didn't  they  write  me?"  Then  the  merciful 
tears  come,  and  she  buries  her  head  on  the 
bosom  of  a  sympathizing  friend  as  she  sobs : 
"  Poor  mother  !  poor  mother  !  " 

"  I  didn't  know  you  was  here,"  the  red- 
haired  youth  says  contritely ;  although  in- 
wardly he  is  proud  of  the  fact  that  he 
"scooped"  even  the  sister  of  the  deceased 
on  this  dainty  morsel  of  terrible  news. 

"  Nu  ja  !  "  philosophized  the  host ;  "  that's 
the  way  we  have  to  go.  Some  by  fire  und 
some  by  water ! — as  the  rabbi  says.  He  had 
to  go  by  fire — that's  the  way  it  goes.  All  of 
Szukonovcze  is  dying.  In  my  last  letter  I 
heard  of  eight  deaths."  For  a  moment  there 
is  silence  ;  then  he  reads  the  roll  of  the  dead. 

"  Joseph  Schlome  died  of  cramps — I  always 
knew  he  was  going  that  way.  He  would  eat 
a  peck  of  black  radishes  at  a  time.  I  knew 
he  would  eat  them  once  for  the  last  time. 

"  Miriam  Bloch,  Schmul  Bloch's  second 
wife,  was  buried  just  before  Yom  Kipper. 
Schmul  will  kill  another  before  long.  You'll 
see.    He'll  take  Rachel — she  has  consump- 


146  The  BROKEN  WALL 

tion,  too.  She  was  crazy  to  marry  him  before 
he  married  her  sister.    Nu  ja  I  " 

Each  name  awakened  memories  of  bygone 
days  ;  of  the  street  where  this  one  or  that  one 
lived,  neighbour  to  the  dead.  Squabbles  on 
the  market  days  were  recalled ;  the  synagogue, 
the  cemetery,  the  mourners,  all  were  visual- 
ized. Thus  they  fed  their  homesick  hearts 
on  bitter  food — sweet,  after  all ;  because  it 
revived  memories  of  home. 

When  all  the  living  and  the  dead  had  been 
judged,  we  reached  the  second  part  of  the 
informal  program  ;  news  of  the  day,  princi- 
pally shop  news.  Of  the  red-headed  Irish 
forelady  :  "  May  she  get  the  apoplexy ! " 

If  wishes  were  microbes,  then  all  the  Irish 
foreladies  in  the  New  York  shops  would  die 
of  some  terrible  disease.  This  particular 
forelady,  "  Brings  me  a  skoit  und  she  says  : 
Mr.  Hoish,  you'll  get  fired  if  you  don't  do  no 
better."  This  in  East  Side  English,  badly 
disfigured  and  shot  through  by  Yiddish. 

Next  in  order  came  the  "  boss,"  the  cutters, 
the  buyers,  the  wages  ;  then  those  terrible 
competitors,  the  Russian  Jews. 


The  FELLOWSHIP  of  SUFFERING  147 

"They  live  on  a  dill  pickle  and  a  piece 
of  schwartz  brot ;  who  can  compete  with 
them?" 

"  They  are  one  of  Pharaoh's  plagues.  They 
verderb  the  whole  America." 

Two  young  men,  one  of  them  working  in 
buttons  and  the  other  in  straw,  had  a  wider 
range  of  thought ;  for  one  had  reached  to 
the  lower  levels  of  ten  cent  vaudeville,  and 
the  other  had  some  notions  of  baseball.  No 
one  listened  to  what  they  had  to  say  of  the 
"  goil  what  can  sing  to  sixteen  coloured  pic- 
shures,  and  sings  so  loud  she  can  be  heard 
above  the  roar  of  the  elevated ; "  nor  of  the 
pitchers  and  bases  and  all  that  other  Hellenic 
terminology  detested  and  feared  by  their  an- 
cestors of  long  ago. 

The  memory  of  a  week's  dull,  hard  labour 
past,  and  the  anticipation  of  a  dull,  hard  week 
ahead  ;  the  story  of  the  tyrants  that  oppressed 
them,  and  the  record  of  their  struggle  towards 
a  bank  account — these  and  the  catalogue  of 
death  and  disease,  from  home,  were  news. 
Not  baseball  scores  and  vaudeville  criticism. 
But  the  chief  piece  of  bad  news  had  been 


148  The  BROKEN  WALL 

withheld.  The  host,  real  epicure  that  he  was, 
had  left  the  best  to  the  last. 

"  A  nice  piece  of  news  I've  got  to  tell  you  1 " 
he  says  slowly  and  with  proper  emphasis. 

What  piece  of  news  could  still  be  of  im- 
portance ? 

"  Has  a  fire  wiped  out  Szukonovcze  ?  " 

*'  Has  the  cholera  swept  away  all  their  rela- 
tives ?  " 

"  Has  the  river  overflowed  and  drowned 
them  all?" 

"  No,  worse  than  that !  Irma  Cohn,  what 
works  on  the  telephone  already,  is  engaged 
to  a  Christian!" 

The  thunder  has  rolled,  the  lightning  has 
struck.  Stunned,  they  sit  for  a  while  speech- 
less. Then  the  host,  conscious  of  the  fact 
that  he  has  given  his  piece  de  resistance  to  his 
guests,  and  properly  flattered  by  their  recep- 
tion of  his  news,  continues  :  "Nn,ja!  When 
her  old  mother  hears  that,  it  will  break  her 
heart. 

"  Think  of  bringing  up  a  child  like  she 
was  brought  up,  in  a  kosher  home  und  such 
a  home  !    On  Friday  you  could  smell  the 


The  FELLOWSHIP  of  SUFFERING  149 

house  a  block  away,  so  clean  it  was.  The 
milk  und  the  meat  dishes  was  locked  up  in 
separate  closets  ;  her  mother  was  afraid  they 
get  trepha  if  they  looked  at  each  other." 

Thus  far,  the  host's  daughter,  a  young 
woman  of  nineteen,  who  grew  into  woman- 
hood in  New  York,  had  taken  no  part  in  the 
conversation.  She  had  become  somewhat 
calloused  to  this  weekly  Jeremiad  from  home. 
The  little  town  had  quite  faded  from  her 
memory,  and  the  news  which  so  excited  the 
others  did  not  arouse  her  interest. 

She  was  reading  the  Morning  "  Tsckumal" 
and  her  heart  was  keyed  to  other  thrills.  The 
whole  world  had  bared  its  secrets  to  her : 
millionaires  and  heiresses  of  all  sorts  had  re- 
vealed to  her  their  love  affairs  ;  she  knew  of 
divorces  in  high  life,  and  of  the  coming  mar- 
riage of  a  certain  foreign  nobleman  to  Amer- 
ican millions. 

She  had  read  in  that  morning's  "  Tsckurnal" 
of  eight  hundred  miners  entombed  and  of 
eight  thousand  people  killed  by  an  earth- 
quake ;  so  why  should  eight  people's  dying 
in  Szukonovcze  affect  her  ? 


150  The  BROKEN  WALL 

She  was  so  Americanized  that  she  had 
even  written  a  letter  to  "  Miss  Montagu"  who 
gives  advice  to  young  lovers — but  that  was 
her  secret.  She  was  startled  into  speaking 
when  they  mentioned  Irma  Cohn,  and  re- 
gretted it  the  moment  she  had  finished  her 
sentence. 

"  If  Irma  Cohn  truly  loves  a  Christian  why 
should  she  not  marry  him?" 

"What  do  you  say?"  her  father  cried 
hoarsely,  his  eyes  glaring  and  his  right  hand 
beating  the  table  as  if  it  were  a  cloak  he  were 
pressing  with  his  hot  iron.  "  Loves  a  Chris- 
tian !  Marry !  Na  ja  I  Children  should 
one  have  !  America  land  of  our  exile — land 
of  our  ruin  !  Our  children  talk  about  loving 
Christians  und  marrying  them  ! " 

Excitedly  he  moved  towards  his  daughter 
who  had  uttered  the  seditious  thought,  and 
shook  her  fiercely.  "  Nu  ja  : — now  you  got 
it !  If  Irma  Cohn  wants  to  marry  a  Christian 
und  break  her  mother's  heart — if  she  wants  to 
disgrace  the  name  of  her  parents  I  can't  help 
it ;  but  if  you  ever  think  of  doing  such  a 
thing,  I  swear  by  the  memory  of  my  sainted 


The  FELL  O  WSHIP  of  S  UFFERING  1 5 1 

mother  that  I'll  not  live  under  the  same  roof 
with  you  for  a  day  !    Out  you  go,  or  out  I'll 

go!" 

Too  much  hurt  to  reply,  the  daughter  ran 
to  the  small  dark  room  which  was  hers  and  I 
heard  her  sobbing  ;  while  in  the  parlour  they 
rehearsed  all  the  great  misfortunes  which  had 
come  to  them  and  their  relatives,  by  way  of 
intermarriage  between  Jews  and  Christians. 

Thinking  it  over  they  found  in  each  family 
a  black  sheep  of  that  kind,  and  some  were 
even  blacker,  for  they  had  been  baptized. 
They  were  spoken  of  in  a  whisper  and  the 
older  ones  spat  on  the  ground  after  the  names 
had  passed  their  lips. 

"  Nil  ja  !  "  the  host  finally  said  ;  "  we  got 
a  case  of  that  kind  in  our  family.  Her 
brother,"  and  he  pointed  with  his  thumb 
towards  the  kitchen  where  his  wife  was  mak- 
ing coffee  for  the  guests — "  such  a  good  for 
nothing — a  libertine,  a  gambler  ;  he  breaks 
the  heart  of  his  mother  by  getting  baptized. 

"  I  wonder  what  those  soul-catchers  wanted 
of  him  ;  he  was  rotten  to  the  bone."  At 
this  moment  his  wife  brought  the  coffee,  and 


1 5 2  The  BR  OKEN  WALL 

the  air  of  the  Old  World  village  was  made 
more  real ;  for  thus  the  coffee  smelled  in 
Szukonovcze,  and  thus  the  coffee  cake  tasted. 
The  guests  almost  wept  from  joy  as  they 
audibly  sipped  the  beverage  and  with  loud 
smackings  ate  the  coffee  cake. 

Of  course  the  hostess  apologized  for  both  ; 
they  were  not  up  to  the  mark.  The  yeast 
and  the  coffee  were  not  as  good  as  in  the 
Old  Country.  The  oven  was  too  hot  or  too 
cold  ;  but  the  appetites  of  the  company,  as 
well  as  their  sincere  protestations,  proved 
that  she  had  done  her  very  best.  When, 
after  much  refilling  of  cups  and  repassing  of 
cake,  she  finally  sat  down  to  drink  her  coffee, 
she  turned  to  her  husband  and  said  : 

"You  were  talking  about  my  brother 
Alfred,  weren't  you?  You  better  not  talk 
about  him  if  you  want  to  bring  him  up  as  a 
horrible  example  of  what  these  baptizers  do 
for  us  Jews. 

"  What  you  said  about  him  is  all  true. 
He  was  a  light-hearted,  irresponsible  boy ; 
he  gambled,  he  ran  after  the  women,  he  was 
imprisoned,  he  was  a  tramp ; — but  the  one 


The  FELLOWSHIP  of  SUFFERING  153 

year  he  lived,  after  those  Christians  got  hold 
of  him,  he  lived  like  a  man,  and  he  died  like 
a  saint. 

"Just  after  he  was  baptized  he  wrote 
mother  a  letter  from  Hamburg — such  a  letter ! 
It  was  like  a  sermon.  He  begged  forgive- 
ness for  the  wrong  he  had  done  her  and  all 
of  us,  and  he  said  he  hoped  to  live  to  right 
some  of  the  wrong.  It's  a  letter  that  ought  to 
be  framed  and  hung  up  " 

Her  husband  interrupted  :  "  He  ought  to 
have  been  hung  too.  Rascal !  I  wonder 
what  he  got  for  letting  himself  be  baptized." 

A  family  jar  seeming  imminent,  the  guests 
hastily  excused  themselves  and  went  home — 
scattering  throughout  the  big  city,  to  begin 
again  on  the  morrow  their  week  of  labour. 

Recently  I  visited  the  home  on  Avenue  B, 
where  I  had  been  a  guest  on  that  interesting 
Sunday  afternoon.  It  is  no  more  the  gather- 
ing place  of  immigrants  from  the  town  of 
Szukonovcze.  Prosperity  has  come  to  many 
of  them  and  they  have  no  bad  news  to 
bring  ;  they  have  been  more  or  less  weaned 


1 54  The  BR  OKEN  WAI.  L 

from  that  bit  of  the  Old  World  where  they 
were  born,  and  only  occasionally  some  of 
them  visit  their  former  host,  who  still  has 
news,  bad  news  to  tell. 

Bad  news  indeed,  at  the  time  of  my  recent 
visit.  That  afternoon  there  was  to  be  a 
funeral — the  funeral  of  his  own  daughter, 
and  it  was  to  be  a  Christian  burial.  He  was 
not  going,  for  she  had  betrayed  him  and 
his  race.  That  Sunday  when  last  I  was  in 
his  house  she  was  "keeping  company"  with 
a  Christian,  a  young  bookkeeper  in  the  shop 
where  she  worked. 

The  father  drove  her  from  his  home  when 
he  discovered  it,  and  the  man  married  her 
at  once. 

"  Nu  ja  I  "  the  father  said,  "  they  say  he 
made  her  a  good  husband.  He  oined  thoity 
dollars  a  week  regular ;  he  wasn't  no  loafer 
und  he  stayed  at  home  nights. 

"  What  did  I  care  ?  He  is  a  Goy  (Chris- 
tian) und  she  broke  my  heart.  Nit  ja!  Now 
she  is  dead,  und  my  wife  is  carrying  on. 
Let  her  !  What  do  I  care  ?  It  is  her  fault ; 
she  did  not  stick  by  me.    She  went  to  see 


The  FELL O  WSHLP  of  SUFFERLNG  155 

her  every  Sunday  afternoon.  I  left  home  ;  I 
wouldn't  live  with  a  wife  who  polluted  my 
house  by  going  to  her  Govish  daughter — 
now  she  is  dead  1  " 

After  long  parleying  he  said :  "  If  I  go 
to  the  funeral  I  go  only  to  show  them  that 
a  Jew  got  a  heart.    Nu  ja  /    I  will  go." 

Together  we  three  climbed  the  steep  steps 
of  the  elevated,  his  wife  weeping  all  the  way, 
and  his  lips  nervously  twitching  from  anger 
or  pain  or  both. 

Somewhere  in  those  monotonous  stretches 
of  New  York's  tenements,  above  100th 
Street,  we  descended  into  Third  Avenue  and 
to  the  daughter's  home.  The  house  was 
marked  by  a  cluster  of  white  roses  fastened  to 
the  door,  before  which  stood  a  line  of  carriages, 
the  hearse,  and  the  usual  gaping  crowd. 

"  Flowers  !  "  the  father  muttered,  as  we 
entered  the  hallway.  "  These  Goyim  must 
think  this  is  a  wedding  ! 

"  Look,  look ! "  he  cried  as  we  reached  the 
already  crowded  room  where  his  daughter 
lay.  "  Look  !  "  His  ringers  trembled  as  he 
pulled  my  coat.    I  looked  and  saw  the 


156  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 

Bodenhaus  Madonna.  Her  sad  eyes  seemed 
to  be  resting  upon  the  casket. 

"  Nu  ja!"  the  old  man  whispered.  "  She 
sold  herself  good  ! — She  lived  like  a  queen  1 
Look  at  the  foiniture  und  the  coitains  und 
the  piano  !  But  what  has  she  got  from  it 
now  ?  She  is  dead !  Nu  ja  I  That's  the 
minister — hm — a  boy  1    No  beard  has  he  got. 

"That's  him,  her  man.  May  he  get  the 
apoplexy  !    He  stole  my  goil ! " 

"  Look  this  way,"  I  said ;  "  there  is  her 
baby."  But  he  would  not  look  at  it.  While 
I  spoke,  there  came  floating  from  an  ad- 
joining room  the  hymn  "  Rock  of  Ages." 
When  the  last  sad  note  had  ceased  vibrating, 
there  was  silence  again  and  then  firmly  and 
triumphantly  the  minister  read:  'T  am  the 
resurrection  and  the  life,  saith  the  Lord." 
"  Though  he  were  dead  yet  shall  he  live,  and 
whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall 
never  die ;  "  and  so  to  the  end  of  that  wonder- 
ful burial  service  which  gathers  into  itself  all 
the  victory  of  the  Christian  faith. 

When  the  minister  finished,  the  father's 
pent-pp  Jewish  emotion  broke  forth,  and  he 


The  FELL  O  WSHIP  of  S  UFFERING  1 5  7 

lifted  up  his  voice,  wailing  and  weeping,  like 
those  who  have  no  hope.  His  wife's  lamen- 
tations blended  with  his,  while  the  Christians 
sang :  "  Nearer  my  God  to  Thee." 

"  My  daughter,  my  daughter  I  "  the  father 
lamented  as  he  bent  over  the  casket.  "  My 
daughter  whom  the  Christians  have  taken 
from  me  !  Your  parents  weep  for  you,  no 
one  else  does.  You  are  our  own  flesh  und 
blood — our  own — you  were  stolen  from  our 
hearts.  Oy,  oy,  oy !  They  sing  und  have 
flowers  like  at  a  wedding,  but  ours  is  the 
grief !    Oh  !  daughter,  our  lost  daughter  !" 

The  unhappy  parents  were  finally  torn 
away  and  led  to  the  waiting  carriage.  All 
the  way  to  the  cemetery  the  old  man  groaned 
about  his  daughter  who  had  no  one  to  weep 
and  lament  over  her. 

"  Think  of  it !  her  husband,  that  hard-hearted 
Goy,  didn't  even  get  his  handkerchief  wet 
during  the  whole  soivice,  und  the  preacher's 
voice  was  not  raised  to  any  pitch  at  all.  As 
for  the  singers  !  All  through  those  hymns 
not  once  did  they  break  down  !  Cold,  cruel 
hearts  ! " 


158  The  BROKEN  WALL 

So  he  complained  of  the  terrible  fate  of  his 
daughter,  to  be  buried  thus,  unwept  by  him 
for  whom  she  had  given  up  home  and  faith. 

Again,  when  the  casket  was  lowered  into 
the  ground,  the  parents  wept  so  loudly,  that 
visitors  in  different  parts  of  the  cemetery 
stopped  their  sad  ministrations  at  the  graves 
of  their  beloved,  and  listened  to  the  weird 
lamentations. 

Upon  the  old  people's  tears  the  Christians 
scattered  flowers,  and  above  their  wailings 
rose  the  strong,  vibrant  note  of  faith :  "  I 
heard  a  voice  from  Heaven  saying  unto  me 
Write,  From  henceforth  blessed  are  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord,  even  so  saith  the  Lord, 
for  they  rest  from  their  labours.    .    .  ." 

The  minister  and  the  friends  had  driven 
away  and  I  was  leading  the  weeping  parents 
to  our  carriage,  when  looking  back  we  saw 
the  husband  prostrate  upon  the  new  made 
grave.  Grief  had  its  way,  and  as  his  uncon- 
trolled sobs  reached  our  ears,  the  Jewish 
parents  turned  back  to  comfort  the  Christian 
husband. 


X 


When  the  Sun  Stands  Still 

"  /^1T-  JOHN'S  day  is  so  great  that  the 
Sun  stands  still  three  times  to  pay 
reverence  to  it,"  little  Velislav  said 
to  his  older  sister  Yanya  who,  being  a  girl, 
was  in  need  of  instruction. 

"  He  will  just  keep  going,  going,  as  he 
always  went,"  the  sceptical  sister  replied  ; 
"  there  by  the  Trusina  he  will  come  up,  and 
there  by  the  Bresina  he  will  go  down." 

"  Yes,  there  he  goes  up  and  there  he  goes 
down  ;  that's  all  you  know  about  it.  You're 
only  a  girl — you  just  wait  till  to-morrow.  At 
four  o'clock  the  Sun  will  stand  still  and  again 
at  noon  and  then  in  the  evening,  when  the 
cows  come  home." 

"  Oh,  yes  !  the  Sun  will  stand  still  when  the 
cows  come  home,"  mocked  the  sister.  "  You 
don't  know  that  the  Sun  can't  stop." 

"  Can't  stop !     Who  told   you  it  can't 
stop?"  the  irate  little  brother  shouted. 
i59 


160  The  BROKEN  WALL 

"  Teacher  told  me  it  can't  stand  still  be- 
cause it  doesn't  move." 

The  boy  stopped  picking  flowers  for  St. 
John's  day,  dismay  and  wrath  written  on  his 
face.  So  it  wasn't  true  what  the  baba  had 
told  him,  and  what  he  heard  the  stable  boys 
saying  while  they  were  tying  birch  bark  for 
torches,  to  be  burned  on  the  hilltops.  And  if 
it  wasn't  true  why  all  this  fuss? 

Why  should  he  gather  flowers  for  wreaths  ? 
Why  should  the  stable  boys  walk  with 
lighted  torches  around  the  pigsties  and  the 
stable,  and  why  should  they  climb  to  the  top 
of  the  Trusina  and  plant  their  torches  as  a 
signal  that  the  Sun  was  standing  still,  to  do 
reverence  to  St.  John's  day  ? 

And  why  should  his  father,  the  village 
priest,  go  out  at  noon  with  the  church  ban- 
ners and  the  choirs,  but  that  at  noon  the  Sun 
might  stand  still  ?  And  then  in  the  evening 
on  the  Bresina !  Well,  if  it  wasn't  true, 
what  was  the  use  ? 

One  by  one  the  flowers  dropped  from  his 
little  fist,  until  but  two  blossoms  remained 
hanging  loosely  between  thumb  and  index 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL  161 


finger.  Then  he  grasped  them  more  firmly> 
as  he  said  to  himself,  "  She  is  only  a  girl. 
She  doesn't  know.  Even  if  the  teacher  did 
say  the  Sun  doesn't  move,  I'll  watch  it  to- 
morrow and  I'll  see  it  will  stop." 

So  with  renewed  energy  he  picked  the  blue 
corn-flowers  and  the  red  poppies,  and  then 
carried  them  to  the  village  church,  where  the 
women  and  the  children  were  tying  wreaths, 
decorating  altars  and  pillars,  and  winding 
young  grain  around  the  bell-ropes. 

St.  John's  day  came  to  the  little  Servian 
village,  and  while  the  children  entered  joy- 
fully into  its  celebration  the  older  ones  looked 
anxiously  to  the  mountain  ;  not  for  the  Sun 
to  stand  still,  but  for  clouds.  For  three 
months  no  rain  had  fallen.  The  last  year's 
harvest  had  failed  because  of  drought,  bread 
was  scarce  and  dear,  taxes  were  high,  and 
the  king's  arm  strong  to  collect. 

That  noon  after  the  priest  had  solemnly 
prayed  for  rain,  the  village  girls  took  Miliza, 
the  prettiest  one  among  them,  and  twined 
around  her  the  flowers  and  grasses  they 
had  gathered,  so   that  she  looked  like  a 


1 62  The  BROKEN  WALL 


huge  bouquet,  in  which  her  face  was  scarcely 
visible. 

So  they  went  from  house  to  house  and  at 
each  door  water  was  poured  over  her,  whom 
they  called  Dodola,  the  name  of  a  rain  god- 
dess, surviving  in  the  memories  of  the  old 
people  and  blending  with  their  present  day 
religious  consciousness. 

While  the  young  people  danced  around 
Dodola  they  sang : 

"  Unto  God  the  highest, 
Maidens  now  are  praying  : 
Oj  Dodo,  oj  Dodola  ! 
Showers  on  us  pour  ! 
Oj  Dodo,  oj  Dodola  ! 

"  Water  Thou  our  fields  and  meadows, 

Oj  Dodo,  oj  Dodola! 
Moisten  Thou  our  wheat  and  barley 
And  the  double  leaf  of  maize, 
Oj  Dodo,  oj  Dodola  !  " 

But  the  rain  did  not  descend  ;  poor  Dodola 
took  a  severe  cold  and  was  carried  away  by 
quick  consumption,  and  gloom  settled  over 
the  villagers  as  they  faced  poverty  and  star- 
vation. 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL  1 63 

Little  Velislav  and  his  sister  Yanya  were 
listening  at  their  father's  study  door.  The 
elders  of  the  village  were  conferring  with  him 
about  the  future,  and  the  children  were  much 
interested. 

"  Do  you  know  where  that  country  is  that 
they  are  talking  about  ? "  asked  Velislav  of 
his  sister. 

"  Right  under  our  feet  on  the  other  side  of 
the  earth.    Sh  !    Listen  1  " 

"  I  can't  hear  anything  but  A-merica, 
A-merica,"  he  whispered. 

"  That's  the  name  of  the  country,  and  it's 
right  under  our  feet.  You  have  to  travel 
over  the  Trusina  and  then  to  the  ocean  and 
then,  oh !  so  far !  You  see,  that's  the  way 
we  know  that  the  Sun  does  not  stand  still 
three  times  on  St.  John's  day  ;  because  right 
here  under  us  is  A-merica." 

Then  they  ran  as  fast  as  their  little  legs 
could  carry  them,  for  the  floor  in  their 
father's  study  shook  under  the  feet  of  those 
strong  men  who  had  sought  his  counsel  and 
now  came,  out  with  a  determined  look  on 
their  faces  ;  for  they  were  going  to  A-merica. 


1 64  The  BROKEN  WALL 

Ten  men  were  going ;  the  heads  of  as 
many  households.  They  were  going  to  spy 
out  the  land  and  send  word  if  they  found 
what  they  sought,  or  come  back  if  they  were 
disappointed. 

On  Sunday  after  mass  the  village  priest 
blessed  them  and  prayed  for  their  safety  and 
happiness.  Tears  were  in  his  eyes  ;  but  the 
men,  all  of  whom  had  been  in  the  army, 
looked  solemn  and  grim.  They  would  not 
cry.  That  was  for  the  priest,  the  women  and 
the  children. 

In  the  afternoon  they  went  from  home  to 
home  to  say  good-bye.  Everywhere  their 
health  was  drunk,  and  when  night  came  the 
whiskey  had  taken  the  pride  out  of  them, 
and  they  were  weeping,  deploring  the  fate 
which  sent  them  over  the  sea.  No  one  could 
sleep  that  night  because  of  the  loud  lamenta- 
tions which  were  made.  The  priest  went 
with  the  men  to  Fiume  and  promised  that  he 
would  pray  for  them  and  look  after  the  wel- 
fare of  their  families. 

Many  months  passed  and  then  a  letter 
came  to  the  parsonage.    There  was  money 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL   1 65 

in  it  and  a  call  for  men.  Ten  more  went  and 
ten  times  ten  ;  although  the  Dodola  had  no 
need  to  cry  for  rain  and  the  fields  yielded 
abundant  harvests.  At  last  there  were  not 
enough  men  left  to  light  the  fires  on  the  eve 
of  St.  John's  day,  on  the  hills  which  stretched 
between  the  Trusina  and  the  Bresina. 

After  two  years,  some  of  those  who  had 
gone  out  first,  returned  and  told  wonderful 
stories  of  A-merica.  But  it  wasn't  the  stories 
of  high  buildings  and  swift  railroads  which 
impressed  the  priest ;  it  was  the  way  the  men 
told  them.  They  never  spoke  of  God  except 
to  swear ;  they  did  not  cross  themselves  when 
the  name  of  the  Deity  fell  upon  their  ears, 
and  when  they  passed  the  icons  on  the  way 
to  church,  they  held  their  heads  erect. 

Seemingly  there  was  no  God,  no  Christ  in 
A-merica.  The  good  priest  questioned  them, 
and  they  told  him  how  they  lived  without 
God  and  without  the  sacraments.  When  he 
blamed  them  they  asked  :  "  Do  you  want  us 
to  go  to  the  Papists  who  have  images  in 
their  churches,  or  to  the  Protestants  who 
have  nothing  in  them  except  an  organ  and 


1 66  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 


who  have  no  mass  and  no  priest  and  no  sac- 
raments ? " 

***** 

Again  Velislav  and  Yanya  are  listening  at 
the  study  door  and  they  hear  their  father 
saying  that  he  will,  he  must  go  to  that 
heathen  A-merica,  and  look  after  his  country- 
men. He  will  go  for  a  year.  The  curate 
shall  take  charge  of  the  parish,  and  the  chil- 
dren he  will  leave  in  care  of  the  trusted 
servant. 

So  their  father  was  going  to  look  after  the 
sheep  of  his  flock  on  the  other  side  of  the 
earth.  Velislav  no  longer  believed  that  the 
Sun  stood  still  three  times  on  St.  John's  day  ; 
but  if  the  earth  revolved,  why  not  get  on  top 
of  the  Bresina  and  then  jump  down  into 
A-merica?  Now  he  knew,  not  only  that 
A-merica  was  on  the  other  side  of  the  earth, 
but  the  names  of  its  states  and  their  capitals. 
He  had  read  also  of  Indians,  wild  and  fero- 
cious, and  he  began  to  cry  when  he  heard 
of  his  father's  determination  to  leave  for 
A-merica. 

Yanya,  being  a  girl,  cried  too,  and  thus 


HE  MUST  GO  TO  THAT  HEATHEN  A-MERICA,  AND  LOOK  AFTER 
HIS  COUNTRYMEN  " 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL  167 


they  were  discovered  when  the  men  came 
out  of  the  study ;  for  the  floor  did  not  shake 
as  it  used  to  when  the  peasants  walked  over 
it.  These  men  who  had  been  in  America 
wore  light  shoes,  there  was  no  iron  on  the 
heel,  and  they  walked  less  clumsily  than  they 
did  before  they  went  there. 

Yanya  dried  her  eyes  on  her  apron  and 
Velislav  dried  his  on  his  shirt-sleeve.  Their 
father  took  them  in  his  arms  and  cried  too, 
and  his  tears  ran  unchecked  down  his  long 
black  beard. 

As  much  of  their  story  as  I  have  written 
Yanya  and  Velislav  told  me  after  I  had  told 
them  about  the  America  I  know  and  love. 
They  showed  me  three  letters  written  by  their 
father  and  as  they  are  most  interesting,  they 
shall  complete  my  story. 

"  W-  ,  Pennsylvania,  Oct.  17,  ipio. 

"  My  dear  Children  : 

"  I  reached  here  by  the  guidance  of 
God,  the  sixteenth  day  after  I  left  home,  hav- 
ing committed  you  to  the  care  of  the  saints 
and  of  the  good  and  trusted  Miluska.  At 
Fiume  there  were  many  Pravo  Slavs  from 
Old  Serbia,  Montenegro  and  Dalmatia  and 


168  The  BROKEN  WALL 


they  paid  proper  respect  to  me.  At  the  Im- 
migrant's Station  I  was  permitted  to  read  the 
service  and  celebrate  mass. 

"  Before  we  went  on  the  ship  they  looked 
into  my  throat  and  into  my  eyes,  four  differ- 
ent times ;  they  did  that  to  every  man, 
woman  and  child,  and  those  who  had  sore 
eyes  or  sore  throats,  or  who  had  no  teeth  be- 
cause of  age  or  disease,  were  sent  back. 
Poor  people  or  perhaps  lucky  people ;  for  I 
found  that  this  America  is  not  the  land  of 
God  or  of  gold — but  of  that  later. 

"  The  ship  looked  very  big  and  very  fine  ; 
but  as  there  were  three  thousand  souls  on  her 
it  did  not  smell  very  good  and  it  was  not 
clean  very  long. 

"  When  we  had  sailed  out  of  the  Quarnero, 
a  very  hot  Sirroco  blew,  and  the  ship_  began 
to  rock  as  if  it  were  an  empty  poppy  seed 
cup.  Everybody  was  violently  sick,  including 
your  father.  While  the  sickness  lasted  the 
men  and  the  women  prayed,  because  they 
thought  the  ship  was  going  down  ;  but  when 
we  came  into  middle  ocean  (the  Mediter- 
ranean) the  sea  was  calm  and  our  spirits  re- 
vived. The  men  began  to  drink  and  sing, 
they  danced  with  the  women,  and  forgot  all 
about  the  danger  and  the  sickness. 

"  I  saw  beautiful  but  unhappy  Italy  where 
so  many  people  were  killed  by  the  earth- 
quake. We  did  not  land  there,  for  fear  of 
the  cholera. 

"  We  also  saw  the  shore  of  Spain  and  our 
ship  stopped   and   took   on  many,  many 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL  169 


barrels  of  grapes  to  carry  to  America.  Then 
we  saw  the  Rock  of  Gibraltar,  and  then 
nothing  but  sea  and  sky  for  fourteen  days. 
Thanks  to  the  protection  of  God  we  had  no 
more  storm. 

"  When  the  sailors  told  us  that  we  would 
land  the  next  morning,  everybody  grew  very 
much  excited,  not  only  about  packing  up 
their  things  but  also  about  being  let  into 
this  country.  The  ruler  of  America  is  very 
careful  not  to  let  anybody  in  who  has  not  a 
sound  body,  clean  eyes,  big  lungs,  and  strong 
arms.  They  care  nothing  about  a  man's 
soul. 

"  I  saw  no  cross  or  icon,  not  even  an 
image  in  the  place  where  we  all  had  to  go 
before  we  landed  ;  neither  did  I  see  any 
soldiers,  and  the  men  who  were  the  officers 
carried  no  arms. 

"  Fortunately  Abradovic  and  Mushicsky 
(whom  I  suppose  you  do  not  remember,  for 
they  were  among  the  first  to  come  to  Amer- 
ica) met  me  at  Ellis  Island  and  with  them  I 
went  to  the  great  city  of  New  York. 

"  My  poor  pen  cannot  describe  what  I  saw 
so  I  am  sending  you  a  book  with  pictures, 
and  you  can  see  what  my  own  eyes  have 
seen ;  that  yon  need  not  take  a  mortal's 
word  for  it. 

"  We  travelled  from  night  till  next  morn- 
ing to  W  .    We  crossed  rivers  and  went 

through  beautiful  cities  and  over  and  through 
the  mountains.  My  poor  head  is  dizzy  from 
what  I  have  seen,  and  I  cannot  describe  it. 


1 70  The  BR  OKEN  WALL 


"  All  I  wanted  you  to  know  by  this  letter 
is  that  I  am  safe  here  by  the  guidance  of 
God." 

The  second  letter  was  written  before 
Christmas  and  was  accompanied  by  pres- 
ents. The  letter  was  very  long,  and  I  give 
only  extracts  from  it. 

"  Our  people  live  here  without  God.  They 
were  glad  at  first  that  I  came  and  were  ready 
to  build  a  small  chapel ;  but  after  a  while 
they  did  not  like  me  so  much  because  I 
complained  that  they  did  not  come  to  church 
as  often  as  they  should,  and  that  they  did 
not  observe  the  fasts. 

***** 

"  Obradovic,  who  has  more  power  over 
the  people  than  I  have,  told  me  that  in  this 
country  the  priest  is  the  third  wheel  on  the 
cart ;  that  I  am  all  right  to  marry  them, 
baptize  their  children  and  give  them  the 
communion ;  but  that  every  man  in  this 
country  is  his  own  master. 

"I  did  not  say  anything  to  him  for  he  is  a 
violent  man,  especially  when  he  is  full  of 
drink,  and  I  cannot  blame  him  for  being 
what  he  is,  and  talking  as  he  does.  There 
is  no  authority  here  ;  every  man  does  as  he 
pleases — no  one  pays  any  respect  to  me 
when  I  pass  and  once  children  ran  after  me 
and  made  fun  of  my  sacred  garb. 


WHEN  The  S UN  STANDS  STILL  1 7 1 


"  My  heart  aches  for  these  Americans. 
There  are  over  six  hundred  Pravo  Slavs 
here  ;  they  have  come  from  many  countries, 
but  they  all  live  like  animals.  No  one 
teaches  them  to  do  better  or  anything  which 
is  religious. 

***** 

"A  few  days  ago  a  young  American 
called  on  me,  the  first  American  who  has 
come  to  see  me.  He  could  speak  a  few 
words  of  Servian  and  he  told  me  that  he 
wanted  to  teach  our  men  English,  and  how 
to  be  clean  and  strong  men. 

"  I  looked  into  his  eyes  and  they  were 
clear  and  honest  looking  and  I  asked  him, 
*  Do  you  believe  in  God  and  the  Christ  and 
the  Holy  Church?'  and  he  said,  looking 
straight  in  my  eyes,  4  Yes,  I  do.'  '  You  do 
all  this  for  the  love  of  Christ?'  Again  he 
said  :  '  Yes.' 

"On  Sunday  I  told  all  the  men  in  the 
church  about  this  young  American  and 
about  what  he  wanted  to  do  for  them  ;  but  I 
told  them  not  to  listen  to  any  wrong  teach- 
ing of  his,  and  to  report  to  me.  They  came 
to  me  and  reported  that  the  young  man  was 
'Aw  ri' ;  that  they  say  always  when  some- 
thing is  very  good.  I  notice  much  change 
among  those  who  go  to  this  school,  but  there 
are  many  who  do  not  go  and  who  are  getting 
into  evil  ways,  whom  I  cannot  rescue  from 
their  wrong." 


1 7  2  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 


The  third  letter  was  written  on  the  2d  of 
June,  191 1.    I  give  it  verbatim. 

"  My  Beloved  Children  : 

"  In  a  few  months  my  year  will  be 
over,  and  soon  I  shall  think  of  coming  home 
to  you.  I  wish  I  could  stay  longer  because  I 
am  learning  very  much,  and  my  idea  of  this 
country  is  changing  very  fast.  The  young 
American  who  came  to  me  about  the  teach- 
ing comes  very  often.  He  asked  me  some 
time  ago  to  take  part  in  celebrating  the 
memory  of  the  soldiers  who  died  in  fighting 
for  their  country.  It  is  a  holy  day  here. 
The  shops  were  all  closed  and  all  the  men  of 
all  nationalities  were  invited. 

"  Think  of  it,  my  dear  children  !  They 
sent  a  beautiful  automobile  after  me,  and  in 
the  machine  was  the  young  American.  With 
him  was  the  honourable  burgomaster  of  the 
city.  It  was  a  very,  very  hot  day,  but  I  felt 
very  happy,  for  there  were  many  flags  floating 
from  the  buildings,  and  the  children  carried 
tiny  flags  and  flowers.  It  made  me  think  of 
our  own  St.  John's  day  which  comes  so  soon. 

"  Old  soldiers  who  wore  blue  suits  and  soft 
hats  walked  at  the  head  of  the  procession, 
carrying  old  battle  flags ;  then  came  many 
nationalities :  Italians,  Hungarians,  Greeks, 
Slovaks,  Russians  and  our  own  Servians. 
They  were  all  well  dressed  and  so  much  alike 
were  they  that  I  could  not  pick  out  my  own 
men. 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL  1 73 


"At  the  cemetery  I  was  asked  to  make  a 
speech  and  I  went  onto  the  wooden  platform 
and  spoke.  Although  no  one  but  our  Ser- 
vians understood  me,  they  all  listened  atten- 
tively, and  only  think,  my  children,  one  of 
our  men  could  translate  my  speech  into  Eng- 
lish and  it  was  all  printed  the  next  day  in  the 
newspaper.  Inasmuch  as  I  think  you  and 
good  old  Miluska  would  like  to  know  what  I 
said  on  this  occasion  I  write  it  down  in  this 
letter  : 

"  '  My  friends  and  brothers,  I  feel  to-day 
indescribably  happy.  I  am  greatly  impressed 
to  see  how  Americans  pay  homage  to  their 
heroic  ancestors  who  have  shed  their  blood 
and  sacrificed  their  lives  for  the  glory  of  their 
fatherland  and  the  welfare  of  their  fellow 
citizens.  These  moments  shared  with  you  are 
enough  to  repay  me  for  all  the  trouble  I  had 
in  my  coming  to  this  country.  They  are 
enough  to  redeem  all  the  sacrifices  made  for 
my  dear  ones  and  my  fatherland. 

"  '  The  Servian  race,  of  whom  I  am  a  proud 
son,  is  a  heroic  race,  and  it  can  for  that  reason 
appreciate  the  patriotism  of  other  races.  The 
Servians  have  for  centuries  shed  their  blood 
and  sacrificed  their  lives  for  the  same  sublime 
idea  which  brought  you  here  to-day  to  pay 
homage  to  your  brave  ancestors.  All  the 
Servians  have  not  yet  been  fortunate  to  ob- 
tain their  freedom,  but  God  will  grant  that  in 
the  end.  We  have  many  heroes  and  many, 
very  many  memorable  heroic  moments  in  our 
history,  and  I  am  proud  to  say  that  in  my 


174  J'1"-  BROKEN  //  '.  / 1 .1. 


fatherland  1  was  a  religious  adviser  and 
spiritual  father  of  the  Servian  army,  which,  if 

needs  be,  to-morrow  will  die  in  defense  of 

their  country  and  liberty,  just  as  heroically  as 
your  ancestors.    I  assure  you  thai  when  th<  y 

know  1  have  spoken  to  yon  to-day  and  paid 

homage  to  your  forefathers  in  their  name, 
their  satisfaction  and  enthusiasm  will  in- 
great. 

'And  what  1  say  hoc  for  my  Servian  broth- 
ers means  also  for  all  my  Slavonian  brotlu  is, 
who,  despite  all  their  efforts,  and  struggles, 
and  their  virtues  and  sacrifices  arc  still  living 
under  the  tyranny  of  powerful  inimical  gov- 
ernments. This  occasion  makes  it  deal  to 
me  that  the  teaching  of  the  Holy  Bible  is  the 
main  foundation  of  the  life  of  Americans.  I 
realize  that  the  Americans  follow  the  teaching 
of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  who  says,"  You  must 
love  your  neighbour."  There  is  no  greater 
happiness  than  to  do  kind  deeds  to  Others. 
1  deem  it  as  my  holiest  duty  to  kiss  this  con- 
secrated ground  upon  which  your  heroic  an- 
cestors have  shed  their  blood  and  in  which 
their  bones  have  been  laid  to  rest.  I  deem  it 
also  my  Christian  duty  to  offer  God  a  prayer 
for  the  repose  of  their  souls,  just  as  if  they 
were  of  my  own  blood.' 

"  At  that  I  kneeled,  kissed  the  ground  and 
offered  a  prayer  for  the  repose  of  those  who 
have  died  for  their  fatherland.  Even  if  my 
speech  was  not  understood  the  prayer  un- 
doubtedly was,  for  as  soon  as  1  kneeled,  they 
all  raised  their  hats,  and  the  gentleman  in 


WHEN  The  SUN  STANDS  STILL   1 75 


the  officer's  uniform  kneeled,  too,  during  the 
entire  prayer.  When  I  arose  I  said,  '  Glory  to 
the  dead  soldiers  and  prosperity  to  the  Ameri- 
can people.' 

"  Almost  all  the  speakers  came  to  congrat- 
ulate and  shake  hands  with  me.  The  young 
American  introduced  them  all  to  me.  The 
honourable  burgomaster  shook  my  hand  and 
thanked  me. 

"  And  thus  ended  this  impressive  celebra- 
tion, in  which  I  took  such  a  prominent  part, 
as  though  I  was  in  our  own  Cegra  or  Xisar, 
or  any  other  historical  place.  I  was  not 
among  strangers,  but  among  my  own  people 
by  heart  and  soul.  After  the  last  song  was 
sung,  the  gentleman  who  had  made  the  first 
speech  called  all  present  to  offer  a  prayer,  and 
holding  his  right  hand  high,  he  recited  aloud 
a  prayer  most  solemnly. 

"  After  that  one  of  my  companions  accom- 
panied me  to  the  automobile.  The  others 
took  the  cars  and  we  all  together  went  back 
to  W  . 

"  I  almost  forgot  to  tell  you  that,  after  all 
was  over,  two  musicians  went  to  different 
parts  of  the  cemetery  and  began  to  play  on 
the  bugle  horn  as  though  on  a  battle-field. 
That,  believe  me,  was  not  only  interesting, 
but  impressive,  and  I  like  it  very  much. 

"  I  enclose  two  little  flags  such  as  the  chil- 
dren here  wore  in  their  dresses.  I  have 
kissed  both  of  them.  Wear  them  on  St. 
John's  day,  for  they  are  the  symbols  of  a  great 
and  free  and  truly  Christian  country.  The 


176  The  BROKEN  WALL 


flowers  I  picked  from  the  graves  of  the 
soldiers. 

"  May  God  protect  you  till  I  come  home. 
Greetings  to  old  faithful  Miluska.  I  have 
written  about  my  coming  home  to  the  curate." 

The  children  watched  me  as  I  read,  and 
when  I  finished,  I  too  kissed  the  flag,  and 
Velislav  said  :  "  When  I  am  big  I  shall  go 
to  America." 

"  Yes,  when  you  are  big,"  his  sister  said 
teasingly.  "  You  will  be  afraid  ;  but,  brother- 
kin,  on  St.  John's  day  when  the  Sun  stands 
still  three  times  you  might  just  jump  off  the 
Bresina.  Perhaps  you  will  land  in  father's 
lap,  over  in  Pennsylvania." 


XI 


The  Dark  People 

IT  was  the  day  after  the  funeral.   A  heart- 
broken, Swedish  grandmother,  a  silent 
German   husband,  too  phlegmatic  to 
show  his  grief,  and  a  little  baby,  crying 
feebly,  were  "  die   trauernden  Hinterblieb- 
enen"  as  the  German  local  paper  expressed  it. 

The  death  of  "Hans  Schurmeier's  Ehe- 
frati"  briefly  chronicled,  was  only  one  scene 
in  a  long  tragedy,  begun  the  day  she  was  born. 
Her  death  did  not  end  it ;  for  her  baby  bore 
marks  of  the  taint  which  had  clouded  its 
mother's  whole  life,  and  made  her  glad  to  die, 
although  she  had  just  seen  the  face  of  her 
first-born.  So  terrible  was  the  taint,  that 
both  the  Swedish  grandmother  and  the 
German  father  wished  that  the  baby  were 
dead  also. 

Hans  Schurmeier  said  it  with  a  muttered 
curse  as  he  bent  over  the  baby's  cradle,  and 
fearing  that  his  uplifted  hand  would  strike 
i77 


1 78  The  BROKEN  WALL 

the  helpless  thing,  I  sprang  between,  while 
the  Swedish  grandmother  came  to  my  aid. 
As  she  looked  at  the  wee  bit  of  humanity,  she 
too,  although  a  woman,  and  its  grandmother, 
had  to  restrain  herself,  not  to  do  it  violence. 

The  father  had  gone  to  the  corner  saloon 
to  find  solace,  and  while  the  grandmother  sat 
as  if  paralyzed  by  grief,  I  pondered,  as  I  often 
had,  over  this  tragedy,  which  I  had  long,  but 
vaguely,  guessed  at. 

The  baby's  mother  whom  we  had  just 
buried  was  young,  yet  seemed  old  and  worn  ; 
gentle  and  refined  in  manner ;  but  always 
sad.  Sitting  in  the  little  parlour  now,  the 
evidences  of  her  housewifely  arts  were  on 
everything ;  the  poor  little  baby  crying  so 
piteously  in  its  cradle  wore  dainty  clothing, 
which  I  knew  its  mother  had  made ;  Hans, 
although  dull  and  undemonstrative,  had  been 
a  kind  husband,  so  far  as  I  knew,  yet  poor 
Inga  seemed  to  live  under  a  cloud  and  her 
eyes  had  a  hunted  look  in  their  dusky  depths, 
pathetic  to  see. 

I  almost  started,  when  the  quiet  of  the 
room   was  suddenly  broken  by  a  cry  of 


The  DARK  PEOPLE  1 79 

anguish  from  the  grandmother  as  she  took 
the  baby  into  her  arms.  With  a  sob  she 
began  rocking  it  on  her  bosom  and  while  her 
tears  flowed,  she  told  me  the  story  of  Inga's 
sad  life. 

"  Ya,  ya  !  I  am  to  blame,"  she  moaned. 
"  I  am  to  blame,  although  I  did  not  know. 
It  was  not  altogether  my  fault.  I  come  yoost 
from  the  old  country  and  I  worked  in  a  hotel. 
I  was  a  chambermaid,  and  he  was  the  head 
waiter.  He  was  a  dark  man,  and  so  hand- 
some, with  curly  black  hair.  I  was  lonesome 
and  he  made  love  to  me  like  a  man,  like  men 
in  the  old  country.  Ya,  they  laughed,  at  the 
hotel,  and  the  lady  who  kept  it  told  me  not 
to  go  with  him  ;  but  I  said  :  '  I  love  him. 
I  like  the  dark  man ;  he  is  kind,  he  will  make 
a  good  home  for  me.' 

"  In  the  old  country,  ya,  in  the  old  country, 
men  love  the  girls  a  long  time  and  then  they 
get  married  ;  they  always  get  married.  The 
dark  man  promised  to  marry  me,  but  he 
didn't. 

"When  the  hotel  lady  found  out  about  me, 
she  told  the  boss,  and  they  sent  the  dark  man 


180  The  BROKEN  WALL 

away.  He  never  come  to  see  me  no  more. 
After  Inga  was  born  I  married  Larsen.  He 
worked  in  the  hotel  too.  He  said :  1 1  don't 
care.  I  love  you,'  and  he  took  me  and  Inga 
away  from  there. 

"  He  was  a  good  man,  Larsen  was.  Some- 
times he  got  drunk  ;  but  he  never  talked  to 
me  about  the  dark  man,  and  he  never  abused 
me,  and  he  was  always  good  to  Inga.  We 
had  three  children.  You  know  Lars,  and 
John  and  Mary.  We  talked  nothing  but 
Swedish  at  home,  and  when  we  lived  over 
the  river  Inga  went  to  Swedish  Sunday- 
school  and  church,  and  none  of  our  Swedish 
neighbours  knew  about  the  dark  man. 

"  One  day  Inga  come  from  school  crying, 
and  she  said  :  '  Mamma,  the  children  call  me 
a  nigger.'  She  was  seven  years  old.  Her 
hair  was  almost  white,  and  her  skin  was 
white  too,  and  her  eyes  was  dark  blue.  My 
heart  yumped  with  pain  when  she  said  that 
and  I  said  :  '  You  are  a  little  Swede,  a  tow- 
head,'  and  I  pulled  her  white  hair  and  my 
heart  give  another  yump  ;  for  I  saw  that  her 
hair  was  getting  curly,  small  little  curls  like 


The  DARK  PEOPLE  1 8 1 

the  dark  man  had,  and  when  I  looked  into 
her  blue  eyes  I  saw  they  was  getting  darker. 
She  went  back  to  school  and  I  cried  and  then 
I  forgot. 

"  Larsen  was  killed  by  a  train  a  few  years 
after  that.  He  was  working  on  a  bridge  by 
the  Big  Four.  Not  long  after  that  Inga  come 
home  from  church  one  Sunday.  She  come 
running  in  from  the  yard  and  she  said : 
'  Mother,  the  children  call  me  a  nigger.  Am 
I  a  nigger  ? ' 

"  I  said  again,  '  Of  course  not.  You  are  a 
little  Swede,  a  towhead.'  I  looked  at  her 
hair  and  I  saw  that  it  was  much  darker,  and 
I  could  not  pull  my  fingers  through  it,  so 
curly  it  was,  and  on  her  face  was  little  speck- 
les like  from  the  sua 

"  Ya  !  when  I  saw  all  that  I  cried  and  she 
said  : '  Why  do  you  cry,  mother  ? '  and  I  said, 
'  For  your  father.'  Then  my  heart  give  an- 
other yump,  and  I  said  :  '  For  Larsen.' 
.  .  .  Ya,  I  can't  tell  you  no  more,"  she  said 
between  sobs,  and  I  let  her  have  her  cry  out 
while  she  went  to  the  cradle  and  laid  the 
little  baby  gently  down.    It  had  fallen  asleep. 


182  The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  I  better  tell  you  all,"  she  said  after  a 
while.  "  Maybe  my  heart  gets  softer  for  the 
baby. 

"  One  other  day  Inga  come  home  and  said : 
1  Mother,  am  I  a  nigger  ? '  and  her  eyes  looked 
up  to  me  and  I  saw  that  the  white  was  all 
yellow,  and  the  beautiful  blue  all  black — and 
the  speckles  on  the  face  was  many — but  I 
said  :  '  No,  you  are  a  Swede.' 

"  Then  she  said  :  '  Mother,  why  is  my  hair 
kinky  like  a  nigger  ?  The  children  all  call 
me  nigger.' 

"  I  didn't  say  nothing  but  my  heart  yumped 
and  yumped,  and  I  did  not  know  what  to  do 
or  what  to  say.  One  day  when  she  was  fif- 
teen she  come  home  after  school  and  she 
threw  herself  on  the  floor,  and  she  cried  like 
a  wild  thing :  1  Mother,  I  am  a  nigger.  I  am 
a  nigger,  and  you  know  it — you  know  you 
do!' 

"  I  said :  '  No,  no,  you  are  a  Swede.  I  am 
a  Swede  and  so  are  you.' 

"  She  said  :  '  Mother,  you  lie  !  you  lie  !  For 
teacher  said  I  must  go  to  school  with  the 
nigger  children.' 


The  DARK  PEOPLE  183 

"  I  went  to  see  the  superintendent  and  he 
said  :  1 1  am  very  sorry,  Mrs.  Larsen,  but  un- 
less you  can  prove  that  Inga  has  no  coloured 
blood  in  her  veins,  you  will  have  to  take  her 
to  the  coloured  school.  The  children  refuse  to 
come  to  school  so  long  as  she  comes.  I  wish 
I  could  keep  her  here.  She  is  a  lovely  child 
and  always  at  the  head  of  her  class.' 

"  I  remember  every  word  he  said,  yoost 
like  it  was  burnt  into  my  brain.  What  could 
I  do  ?  I  never  told  anything  to  Inga  ;  but 
she  never  went  to  school  no  more.  She  went 
to  work  in  houses.  She  always  had  fine 
places  because  she  was  like  a  lady  in  her 
ways.  She  spent  all  her  money  for  medicine 
to  take  the  speckles  off  her  skin,  and  for 
things  to  straighten  out  her  hair  and  when 
they  didn't  help,  she  saved  all  her  wages  for 
two  months  and  bought  a  wig,  a  1  transforma- 
tion,' the  advertisement  called  it.  It  cost 
forty  dollars. 

"  It  covered  her  whole  head.  It  was  a 
beautiful  light  brown  colour  and  the  hair  was 
very  straight.  It  was  braided  and  wound 
around  and  around  her  head.    For  a  while 


1 84  The  BROKEN  WALL 

she  was  very  happy,  but  there  was  something 
wrong  with  it,  and  it  poisoned  her  and  she 
got  awful  sick.  I  thought  she  would  die. 
It  seemed  as  if  her  heart  would  break  when 
she  had  to  stop  wearing  that  'transforma- 
tion.' 

"  For  a  long  time  she  didn't  go  nowhere. 
She  yoost  kept  on  spending  more  money  for 
things  to  make  her  hair  straight.  She  never 
had  went  back  to  the  Swedish  church. 

"  You  know  how  she  went  to  your  church 
and  how  she  met  Hans  at  the  Sunday-school 
picnic.  One  day  she  come  home  smiling.  I 
never  saw  her  so  happy  for  many  years,  and 
she  said : '  I  am  engaged  to  Hans  Schurmeier.' 
Then  my  heart  yumped  again  and  I  cried 
but  I  did  not  say  anything,  and  she  said  : 
•Why  are  you  not  happy?'  I  couldn't  say 
a  word. 

"  Ya,  she  married  Hans.  He  wasn't  long 
from  the  Old  Country  and  he  didn't  know 
about  the  dark  people.  I  never  can  call 
them  niggers.  I  am  to  blame  for  letting  her 
marry  ;  but  what  should  I  have  said  ?  She 
loved  Hans  and  she  was  so  happy. 


The  DARK  PEOPLE  1 85 

"  Oh  1  I  wish  now  that  I  had  told  her  every- 
thing. They  was  married  two  weeks  when 
she  come  home  crying.  '  Mother,  I  can't  find 
a  place  to  live  except  among  the  niggers  and 
it  makes  Hans  angry.'  I  said : '  Come  here  to 
live.'  It  was  my  house  ;  Larsen  bought  it  for 
me.  They  come ;  but  then  Lars,  who  is  the 
oldest,  said  no,  he  wouldn't  live  with  no  nig- 
ger, it  would  spoil  his  job  ;  the  men  was  al- 
ready making  fun  of  him. 

"  Mary,  she  come  home  crying  because 
the  girls  in  the  office  said  '  nigger '  whenever 
she  come  in,  and  she  wouldn't  stand  it.  I 
had  to  tell  Hans  and  Inga  to  move  out. 
Ya  !  Ya  I  I  cried  and  carried  on  so  I  thought 
my  heart  would  break. 

"Inga  never  come  to  see  me  again — but 
one  day  about  a  year  after  they  was  married 
Hans  come  and  asked  me  to  go  to  his  house. 
Inga  was  sick.  I  found  her  crying  like  mad, 
that  she  didn't  want  her  baby  to  be  a  nigger. 
She  was  sick  a  long  time,  and  I  was  with  her 
day  and  night.  All  the  time  she  cried  like 
mad,  that  she  didn't  want  her  baby  to  be  a 
nigger. 


1 86  The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  I  tried  to  comfort  her.  I  told  her  about 
her  father,  that  he  wasn't  very  black,  and 
that  the  baby  would  surely  be  white.  Then 
she  was  quiet ;  but  her  eyes  looked  like  she 
was  dying  of  hunger,  so  pitiful,  my  heart 
yumped  all  the  time  and  I  could  not  sleep  or 
eat. 

"  Ya,  ya.  We  had  an  awful  time  when  the 
baby  come.  Hans  run  out  of  the  house ;  he 
was  afraid  to  come  in  to  see  the  baby  for  he 
knew  now  about  the  dark  people.  I  wanted 
to  die  when  I  saw  it.  Inga  was  out  of  her 
head  and  she  was  saying  all  the  time,  1  Not  a 
nigger,  not  a  nigger.'  She  was  calling  all  the 
time  for  the  stuff  for  her  kinky  hair,  and  the 
medicine  to  take  the  speckles  off  her  face. 
When  she  come  to  herself  and  her  eyes  opened, 
she  called  for  her  baby.  I  said:  'There  ain't 
no  baby.'  She  looked  at  me  and  her  eyes  al- 
most cut  right  through  me,  and  she  said  yoost 
like  she  said  years  before  :  '  You  lie,  mother, 
you  lie ! '  Then  the  baby  cried,  and  she  begun 
to  scream :  '  I  want  my  baby  !  Give  me  my 
baby  ! ' 

"  I  was  like  paralyzed.    I  couldn't  move, 


The  DARK  PEOPLE  187 

and  she  got  up  and  looked  into  the  cradle. 
When  she  saw  the  baby  she  give  one  cry. 
I'll  hear  it  to  my  dying  day,  and  I  hope  that 
will  be  soon.  It  went  through  my  bones  and 
my  marrow.  It  was  like  as  if  I  had  put  a 
hot  iron  in  her  heart.  Then  she  fell  back 
and  never  opened  her  eyes  again.  Ya,  ya, 
poor  baby  !  I  wish  you  was  dead  too !  I 
wish  I  was  dead  tool  Ya,  ya.  The  dark 
people  !    The  dark  people  1 " 


XII 


«  Will  He  Let  Me  In  ?  " 

" /^UTER  Herrleben,  will  he  let  me  in?" 

That  is  the  question  one  can  hear 
from  a  thousand  lips,  all  the  way  from  the 
Russian  border  to  Ellis  Island.  The  empha- 
sis is  always  on  the  third  personal  pronoun  ; 
for  to  the  steerage,  he  is  the  government, 
the  Czar  or  one  of  the  Czar's  minions.  He 
is  arbitrary,  autocratic,  and  immovable,  ex- 
cept when  palm  meets  palm  with  the  soften- 
ing touch  of  gold  between.  That  alone  buys 
leniency  and  buys  it  by  the  shutting  of  the 
eye,  not  by  the  opening  of  the  heart. 

He,  the  Czar,  his  governors,  pristavy, 
natchalniky,  Cossacks  and  gendarmes  have 
made  that  he  look  to  the  emigrant  like  the 
great  terror  of  the  judgment  day.  He  has  a 
small  forehead,  shaggy  hair,  a  brutal  face 

and  small,  blinking  eyes,  always  hungry  for 
188 


"  WILL  LIE  LET  ME  LN?  "  189 

rubles  ;  never  satisfied,  always  wanting  more 
Those  small,  blinking,  hungry  eyes  have  fol- 
lowed the  emigrant  from  the  crowded  Ghetto, 
reeking  in  filth,  to  the  railroad  station — there 
to  be  appeased  by  rubles,  and  more  rubles, 
as  the  journey  proceeded. 

At  the  border  station  at  Alexandrova  they 
looked  fiercer  and  hungrier  than  ever,  again 
demanding  rubles,  and  more  rubles  ere  the 
barriers  fell. 

When  Russia  was  left  behind,  the  wan- 
derers still  feared  the  he — for  underneath  the 
Prussian  helmet  they  saw  other  small,  fierce, 
blinking  eyes  ;  but  they  could  not  be  shut  by 
rubles.  They  learned  long  ago  that  this  is  a 
different  he  from  the  one  across  the  River 
Pruth.  Here  they  lie,  for  what  they  cannot 
buy. 

This  he  does  not  look  into  the  pockets  of 
those  who  crowd  across  the  border — although 
he  likes  to  be  sure  that  they  have  money  to 
go  safely  through  his  domain. 

This  he  looks  into  eyes  and  lungs  as  if  he 
were  drafting  men  into  his  army. 

"  The  cough  of  our  little  boy,  gtiter  Herr- 


190  The  BROKEN  WALL 


leben  ?  It  is  only  of  yesterday.  No,  we  are 
not  going  to  America.  We  are  going  to 
Amsterdam  ;  we  have  a  son  in  business  who 
will  take  care  of  us." 

Hundreds  have  preceded  this  man,  thou- 
sands are  crowding  after,  and  the  he  is  very 
busy ;  so  Prussian  eyes  are  shut  for  a  mo- 
ment and  the  little  coughing  boy  is  safely 
crowded  into  a  fourth-class  railway  carriage. 

But  the  Prussian  he  looks  in  upon  the  boy 
a  dozen  times  as  they  travel  across  his  coun- 
try, and  each  time  he  gets  the  same  answer. 
The  cough  is  only  of  yesterday,  and  they  are 
going  to  Amsterdam. 

"  Why  should  we  want  to  go  to  America  ? 
Gott  behiit  /    Oh,  no,  a  thousand  times  no !  " 

The  cough  is  not  of  yesterday,  nor  are  they 
going  to  Amsterdam,  but  to  the  great  wait- 
ing ship  at  Rotterdam,  and  as  they  near  it, 
they  ask  again  the  same  question,  "  Will  he 
let  him  in  ? " 

The  Dutch  he  is  not  so  terrible.  He  has 
no  helmet  or  sword  or  gun  ;  his  eyes  do  not 
flash  as  if  they  were  a  search-light,  and  he 
only  asks  questions. 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN?  "  191 

:<  Are  you  an  Anarchist  ?  " 

"  Oy,  an  Anarchist ! "  And  the  father 
trembles  when  he  repeats  the  word.  "  An- 
archist ?  Of  course  not.  Government  is  of 
God,  holy.  Something  before  which  one 
must  stand  in  awe,  as  if  it  were  the  great 
judgment." 

"  Are  you  a  Polygamist  ?  " 

What  does  that  mean  ?  Shall  he  say  yes 
or  no  ?    Which  will  please  the  he  most  ? 

The  Dutch  he  does  not  wait  for  an  answer 
to  this  and  other  questions  in  the  long  cate 
chism.  He  mumbles  them  as  a  priest 
might,  whose  lips  have  grown  dull  to  the 
words  repeated  countless  times  during  the 
day. 

One  after  the  other  the  crowds  pass,  laying 
bare  their  bodies  where  they  must  and  con- 
cealing of  mind  and  heart  and  pocketbook  all 
they  can. 

The  Dutch  he  has  let  the  boy  with  the 
"  cough  of  yesterday  "  into  the  crowded  steer- 
age with  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  others. 
The  pungent,  all-pervading  odour  of  carbolic 
acid   mingles   with  the  foul  fumes  of  the 


192  The  BROKEN  WALL 

Ghettos ;  of  peasant  huts  and  stables,  of  gar- 
lic and  vodka  ;  of  leather  boots  and  sheepskin 
coats. 

Above  the  babel  of  tongues  and  above  the 
rattle  of  anchor  chains  rises  the  "  cough  of 
yesterday "  ;  just  the  little  cough.  The 
steerage  doesn't  mind  ;  it's  just  a  little  cough, 
the  kind  they  have  heard  always  and  nobody 
cares.  Ah,  yes,  but  the  cough  persists,  and 
they  begin  to  say  to  the  anxious  father,  "  He 
won't  let  him  in." 

He — this  other  he — the  last  one,  who  guards 
the  gate  which  separates  fathers  and  mothers, 
which  stands  between  hope  and  despair,  be- 
tween oppression  and  opportunity — this  he  is 
the  most  terrible  of  all. 

He  cannot  be  bought  and  he  knows  all  the 
lies  which  brood  in  anxious  hearts.  Be  care- 
ful now — you  unhappy  ones  !  He  will  look 
at  you  most  searchingly,  this  he,  and  if  your 
eyelids  droop  or  your  breast  labours  or  your 
limbs  lag,  he  will  mark  you,  and  you  will  have 
to  face  him  again  and  again.  He  will  prove 
every  word  of  yours  as  if  he  were  Jehovah 
before  whom  no  iniquity  is  hidden. 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN  f  "  193 

Yes,  poor  things  !  they  will  invent  new  lies. 
From  the  time  the  boat  leaves  its  dock  until 
the  new  land  appears,  the  steerage  passengers 
are  busy  inventing  them.  There  is  no  one  on 
the  great  ship  to  give  advice  or  calm  their 
fears  except  those  who  have  been  there  be- 
fore. They  know  his  nature  and  their  ad- 
vice, which  is  at  a  premium,  is  to  lie. 

"  Will  he  let  me  in  ?"  asks  a  sloven,  upon 
whom  vice  has  written  its  story. 

"  Not  if  you  wear  that  gown,  bought  with 
the  wages  of  sin.  He  has  a  sharp  eye — he  is 
an  expert  at  discovering  your  kind.  He  will 
know  you  by  your  clothing,  and  read  your 
wretched  soul  in  your  shifting  eyes." 

"  Rachael,  daughter  of  a  virtuous  race,  now 
one  of  her  numerous  harlots,  put  on  sack- 
cloth and  ashes.  Do  not  look  into  the  eyes 
of  the  men  who  ask  questions  ;  look  as  inno- 
cent as  once  you  were,  before  every  dirty  mujik 
could  buy  your  body  for  the  price  of  a  drink." 

"Will  he  let  me  in?"  asks  an  undersized 
youth  with  limbs  scarcely  strong  enough  to 
hold  him.    "  I  am  a  baker  by  trade." 

"  Lie,  my  boy,"  advises  his  companion. 


194  The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  Tell  him  you  have  a  rich  brother  in  New 
York  who  earns  fifty  dollars  a  week  instead 
of  the  ten  he  does  earn."  This  man  will  lie 
too,  and  others  will  swear  his  lie  is  truth. 

"  What  about  me  ? "  asks  an  old  man 
whose  face  is  furrowed  and  care-worn.  "Will 
he  let  me  in? " 

"  Old  men  are  his  pet  aversion.  You  have 
a  daughter  married  in  New  York.  If  you 
want  to  get  into  the  shelter  of  the  wretched 
tenement  in  which  she  lives,  tell  him  you  are 
fifty  years  of  age  instead  of  sixty,  that  your 
son-in-law  will  give  you  a  job  at  fifteen  dol- 
lars a  week,  though  he  works  for  twelve ;  tell 
him  you  are  a  skilled  tailor,  though  you 
would  not  know  how  to  pull  bastings  out  of 
a  pair  of  trousers." 

"  And  you  ?  You  have  a  job  waiting  for 
you  ?  Tell  them  you  have  no  job,  because 
there  is  a  law  which  prohibits  your  getting  a 
job  before  you  land." 

"How  about  me?"  anxiously  inquires  a 
young  widow  whom  sorrow  has  not  robbed 
of  her  beauty. 

"  You  are  all  alone  ?    Don't  know  any  one  ? 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN?  "  195 

Tell  them  you  have  a  cousin  in  Chicago. 
You  haven't  any  ?  Oh,  well !  I've  got  a 
cousin  who  will  be  your  cousin  too." 

"  Your  eyes  hurt,  my  lad  ?  Lie  about  it. 
Say  they  never  hurt  before.  Go  to  the  doctor 
right  away.  Do  anything.  Only  don't  let 
him  see  that  they  are  sore." 

"  Your  little  boy  looks  bad.  How  pale  he 
is  and  how  he  coughs  I  No,  he  won't  let 
him  in." 

"  You  have  two  sons  in  New  York  ?  Hon- 
est?" 

"  By  Jehovah  !  By  the  memory  of  my 
sainted  parents  !    They  are  well  to  do." 

"  No,  he  won't  let  him  in,  not  with  that 
cough.  No.  You  haven't  money  enough 
to  make  him  shut  his  eyes.  You  can  cry  till 
doomsday.  You  won't  soften  his  heart.  He 
will  not  let  your  boy  in." 

The  sun  is  shining  on  the  deck,  the  storm 
has  ceased.  The  steerage  is  alive  once  more 
with  shouting  peasant  lads  drinking  beer, 
while  their  lassies,  sitting  snugly  beside  them, 
eat  salt  pickles  and  cast  sweet  glances  at  their 
partners. 


196  The  BROKEN  WALL 

Dirty  children  of  all  ages  run  about  while 
their  mothers  squat  in  squalid  groups  on  the 
deck. 

The  Russian  Jews  are  in  evidence  as  usual 
with  their  prayer-books  and  teakettles. 
Everybody  is  out — even  the  boy  with  the 
cough,  although  they  had  to  carry  him  from 
his  bunk.  His  face  is  paler  than  ever  and  his 
eyes — big,  black,  dreamy  eyes — look  sadly 
out  upon  the  sea  and  sky,  as  they  let  him 
down  among  the  revellers. 

For  a  moment  there  is  silence.  Then  the 
peasant  lads  begin  to  sing  of  poppy  fields 
and  maidens'  hearts  ;  of  red  cheeks  and  white 
wine.  Some  one  plays  a  harmonicon  and  the 
jerky,  pathetic  notes  cause  the  blood  of  the 
peasant  lads  to  run  faster.  The  maidens  re- 
spond, and  around  the  pallid  child  they 
dance,  wildly  and  clumsily,  forgetting  the 
great  terror,  he,  waiting  with  his  searching 
gaze  and  nimble  wits. 

Approaching  the  boy  with  the  cough  as  he 
lies  on  the  deck,  I  ask  :  "  What  can  I  do  for 
you,  my  lad  ?  I'll  get  you  oranges,  candy, 
anything  you  want." 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN?  "  197 

"  Give  me  some  chalk,"  he  says  between 
laboured  breaths. 

A  sailor  brings  a  bit  of  chalk  from  the 
upper  deck,  where  it  was  used  to  mark  the 
scores  at  a  game  of  ring  toss  or  shuffle- 
board.  The  boy's  thin,  pallid  fingers  grasp 
the  chalk  eagerly  as  children  reach  for  sweets, 
and  upon  the  deck  where  he  lies  he  draws 
houses  and  trees  and  clouds.  He  does  it  as 
quickly  as  if  he  were  a  conjurer.  This  is  a 
new  sensation  on  board,  more  wonderful  than 
jumping  fish  or  passing  sails. 

Music  and  dancing  are  forgotten  and  the 
mob  crowds  around  the  boy,  too  close  to  give 
him  space  for  his  work.  While  every  one 
oh's  !  and  ah's  !  the  father  tells  me  the  story 
of  the  boy  with  the  "  cough  of  yesterday." 

He  was  born  in  a  tavern  in  Russia,  into  an 
atmosphere  of  smoke  and  vodka  fumes  and 
in  a  room  so  damp  that,  when  the  frost 
came,  the  walls  were  like  crystal,  fading  into 
murky  rivulets  where  warm  breath  touched  it. 
When  the  boy  was  old  enough,  he  went  to 
the  Chedar  and  learned  reading  and  writing, 
but  not  much  else.    The  teacher  told  the 


198  The  BROKEN  WALL 


father  that  his  boy  showed  no  signs  of  be- 
coming a  scholar  and  that  his  slate  was  more 
often  covered  by  pictures  than  by  the  queer 
cubical  Hebrew  letters. 

One  morning  when  the  father  woke,  he 
found  the  boy  standing  on  his  bed  moving 
his  index  finger  over  the  wall.  He  thought 
the  child  ill,  or  in  some  mischief ;  but  when 
he  left  his  bed  and  looked  at  the  wall  he  found 
it  covered  by  pictures  of  various  kinds. 

His  astonishment  was  no  greater  than  that 
of  his  early  customers  who  came  before  the 
pictures  faded.  Among  them  was  the  vet- 
erinary surgeon  who  was  employed  on  the 
Baron's  estate,  celebrated  for  its  stud  horses. 
Through  him  and  through  others,  news  of 
this  prodigy  reached  the  Baron,  and  one 
morning  he  came  himself  into  the  ill-smelling 
hut  to  see  the  pictures  on  the  crystal  wall. 

The  boy  had  genius.  Where  it  came  from 
would  be  an  idle  question.  His  forefathers, 
from  the  time  when  Moses  brought  the  Ten 
Commandments  from  Sinai,  abhorred  graven 
images,  and  the  skill  to  shape  them  is  almost 
dead  or  dormant  in  the  race. 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN?  "  199 

The  Baron  hated  the  Jews  except  when  he 
needed  money  ;  but  his  heart  was  softened  to 
the  boy  by  the  universal  appeal  of  art,  and 
he  told  the  father  that  he  must  take  him  to 
the  city.  Parental  pride  is  much  the  same  in 
all  races  but  is  especially  strong  in  the  Jew, 
and  no  sacrifice  is  too  great  to  bring  to  it. 
The  tavern  was  sold  and  the  march  to  Mos- 
cow begun. 

The  interior  of  Russia  is  closed  to  the  Jew 
except  to  a  privileged  class  ;  to  this  the  father 
did  not  belong,  and  he  was  ordered  to  leave 
the  city  which  it  had  cost  so  much  to  reach. 
In  vain  did  he  plead  the  boy's  talent.  They 
gave  him  thirty  days  of  grace  before  going 
and  gave  that  reprieve  only,  because  of 
the  rubles  which  he  pressed  into  the  pristatf 's 
hand. 

The  boy  spent  most  of  his  time  in  the  pic- 
ture-gallery, and  it  was  from  there  he  was 
taken  by  the  police,  and  put  outside  the  walls 
of  the  Holy  City  of  Moscow.  From  there  the 
family  went  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  through 
the  intervention  of  rich  co-religionists  was  per- 
mitted to  remain  six  months.   The  father  se- 


200  The  BROKEN  WALL 


cured  an  art  teacher  who  led  the  boy  out  oi 
the  mysticism  of  his  art  into  its  technic.  He 
could  not  be  moved  from  his  drawing-board 
and  stooped  over  it  day  and  night,  as  his 
forefathers  stooped  over  the  Talmud.  At 
sunrise  when  his  father  was  laying  the  phy- 
lacteries over  his  hairy  body,  the  boy  was 
working  with  charcoal  and  with  the  brush  ; 
but  before  the  six  months  were  over  the  small- 
eyed,  gold-hungry  he  asked  for  more  rubles, 
and  when  they  were  not  forthcoming,  the 
family  was  put  outside  the  city  of  St.  Peters- 
burg as  it  had  been  banished  from  Mos- 
cow. What  finally  decided  the  father  to 
emigrate  he  did  not  say  ;  but  he  looked  to 
America  as  the  haven  where  his  boy  could 
study  art  unmolested,  and  ultimately  satisfy 
the  parental  pride. 

And  now  came  the  question  so  often  asked, 
"  Will  he  let  him  in  ?  The  cough,  guter 
Herrleben  ?  Why  shouldn't  he  cough  ?  The 
damp  of  the  hut  in  which  we  lived — the  chilly 
rooms  in  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg  did  it. 
It  is  only  a  cold  ;  it  will  pass.  Why  shouldn't 
he  let  him  in  ?    Doesn't  he  like  the  Jiiden  ?  " 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN  f  "  201 


*  No,  that  isn't  it." 

"Then  why  won't  he  let  him  in?" 

He  was  not  the  only  one  in  that  steerage 
who  asked  the  question.  It  ran  from  stem  to 
stern  ;  it  rose  above  the  joy  of  meeting,  above 
the  chance  for  a  new  beginning,  even  above 
the  thrill  over  the  escape  from  gaol. 

The  cabin  can  hide  its  trinkets  bought  in 
Paris,  it  may  be  anxious  regarding  the  exam- 
ination of  baggage  and  fear  that  precious 
gowns  will  be  crushed  in  the  process  ;  but 
the  steerage  cannot  hide  its  sores,  its  weak 
limbs,  and  its  empty  pockets. 

When  the  ship  reaches  the  harbour,  the 
cabin  looks  with  joy  to  the  broken  sky-line, 
with  its  towering  palaces  of  trade ;  but  the 
steerage  is  deaf  and  dumb  except  to  the  one 
agonizing  question  :  "  Will  he  let  me  in  ?  " 

Down  on  the  lower  deck  the  emigrants 
are  crowded  together  as  at  the  beginning  of 
the  voyage,  and  with  the  great  fear  still 
tugging  at  their  hearts.  One  can  almost  hear 
them  beating  out  that  one  question  as  the 
throb  of  the  ship  ceases. 

And  now  a  new  he  has  taken  command. 


202  The  BROKEN  WALL 


He  has  no  helmet,  it  is  true.  A  golden  sym- 
bol on  his  cap  and  a  suit  of  blue  mark  him 
from  the  rest ;  but  he  has  a  keen,  cold,  un- 
sympathetic look.  He  holds  a  watch,  by 
which  he  counts  the  strangers,  his  mind  and 
heart  seeming  like  the  watch, — made  of  metal 
and  not  of  flesh. 

One  by  one  they  come  from  below ;  one, 
ten,  a  hundred,  a  thousand.  They  do  not  go 
fast  enough.    Drive  them  up. 

"  Hoy  !  Hoy  1 "  Evidently  the  man  has 
driven  cattle  on  the  prairies  ;  thus  he  drives 
these  humans  from  below.  He  seems  to  be 
all  eyes — he  says  nothing — for  there  is  an- 
other he  and  yet  another,  and  the  last  he 
holds  the  keys  to  the  kingdom. 

The  ship  is  fast  on  her  dock,  safe  from 
wave  and  wind,  a  dead,  lifeless  thing ;  but 
below  wait  the  thousands,  dead  to  the 
stifling  heat  and  the  gnawing  hunger,  alive 
only  to  the  one  question  :  "  Will  he  let  me 
in?" 

The  boy  with  the  "cough  of  yesterday" 
lies  upon  his  bunk  and  beside  him  are  his 
parents,  anxious  as  only  parents  can  be  ;  as 


"  WILL  HE  LET  ME  IN?"  203 

only  the  Jewish  parent  can  be  ;  for  he  is  "a 
man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with  grief." 

"  Will  he  let  him  in, guter Herrleben  ?"  they 
ask  for  the  thousandth  time. 

It  is  nine  o'clock  at  night  and  there  are 
twelve  hours  left.  "  We  must  pray  ;  perhaps 
he  will  let  him  in." 

They  are  praying  as  only  the  Jew  can 
pray,  in  inarticulate  groaning.  The  little 
boy's  great,  black  eyes  are  growing  dim. 
Midnight  strikes  and  there  is  such  silence  as 
is  possible  where  over  a  thousand  people  try 
to  sleep  just  before  the  judgment  day.  The 
air  is  heavy  and  hot  and  tense,  as  if  fate 
lurked  therein. 

The  boy  with  the  cough  is  sleeping  ;  his 
old  father,  with  drooping  head,  sleeps  too,  his 
beard  touching  the  face  of  the  child.  There 
is  a  noise,  a  rattle  as  if  something  had  broken 
— the  thin  body  moves,  then  is  quiet  again. 
The  old  man,  half  awake,  strokes  his  beard 
and  as  he  lifts  his  hand  towards  the  light,  I 
see  that  it  is  red,  blood  red. 

It  is  morning.  One  by  one  the  emigrants 
are  let  down  from  the  great  ship  and  counted 


204  The  BROKEN  WALL 

again,  that  none  is  missing.  Will  he  let  them 
in  ?  The  harlot,  the  old  man,  the  baker  boy, 
the  young  widow,  the  children  without 
parents,  the  man  who  has  a  job  and  the  man 
who  has  none  ?    They  do  not  know. 

But  the  boy  with  the  "  cough  of  yesterday," 
the  little  boy  who  drew  pictures  on  the  frozen 
wall  of  the  tavern,  to  him  He  came.  Yes, 
He  came,  the  great  terror.  He  could  not  be 
bought,  or  plead  with,  or  lied  to.  He  came 
early  in  the  morning.  He  asked  no  ques- 
tions. He  did  not  ask  :  "  Are  you  an  An- 
archist, a  Jew,  or  a  Gentile  ?  Are  you  white 
or  yellow,  rich  or  poor?" 

He  just  opened  the  gate,  and  let  the  wan- 
derer in. 


XIII 


Americanus  Sum 

I WONDER  why  Mrs.  Salciccioli  is  so 
nervous  this  morning,"  I  said  to  my 
wife.    "  She  acts  like  a  hen  on  a  hot 
griddle." 

Now  I  have  never  seen  a  hen  on  a  hot 
griddle  except  when  properly  prepared  for 
the  ordeal,  and  then  the  hen  did  not  behave 
at  all  as  our  landlady  was  behaving.  She 
wiped  the  dust  from  my  desk  six  times  in  suc- 
cession, from  the  topmost  pigeonholes  down 
to  the  claws  of  its  ill-shaped  legs.  I  endured 
this,  until  she  began  the  seventh  attack,  and 
then,  with  an  oft  repeated  "  bene,  bene,11  I 
gently  pushed  her  out  of  the  room. 

I  had  just  succeeded  in  putting  Mrs.  Salcic- 
cioli out  of  my  mind  and  was  trying  hard  to 
make  up  my  lost  twenty  minutes  when,  after 
a  nervous  knock  on  the  door,  the  cause  of  my 
trouble  again  entered  the  room.    This  time 

20S 


206 


The  BROKEN  WALL 


she  was  accompanied  by  Mr.  Salciccioli,  who 
never  by  any  chance  permitted  me  to  forget 
that  he  was  a  Roman  with  an  ancient  lineage, 
while  I  was  only  a  barbarian  from  beyond  the 
seas.  How  contemptuously  he  shrugged  his 
shoulders  when  he  deigned  to  talk  to  me 
about  "  the  dollar  country,"  as  he  called  it. 

"  No  sculpture,  no  music,  no  painting,  ex- 
cept that  which  you  bring  from  Italy. 

"  Look  at  the  poor  Italian  !  no  coal,  no 
water-power,  no  silver,  no  gold ;  but  he  takes 
a  block  of  marble  from  Carrara  and  carves  a 
god  out  of  it." 

There  was  no  use  arguing  with  a  man  who 
believed  that  our  flowers  have  no  fragrance, 
our  birds  no  song,  and  our  children  no  talent 
except  for  making  money. 

However,  he  was  never  too  proud  to  accept 
the  handsome  sum  of  American  money  we 
paid  for  our  lodgings,  or  the  tips  frequently 
bestowed.  Never  did  I  hear  him  say  more 
than  the  courtly  grazia  ;  while  to  my  cordial 
greetings,  he  replied  with  an  abbreviated 
"gwrno,  "  minus  the  flourishes  to  which  one 
becomes  accustomed  in  Italy. 


A MERICANUS  SUM  207 

On  this  particular  morning  Mr.  Salciccioli 
carried  a  newspaper,  which  by  its  bulk  be- 
trayed its  over  seas  origin.  His  wife  held  a 
letter  which  she  pressed  into  my  reluctant 
hand. 

"  Pardon,  Signor,  it  is  a  letter  from  our  son, 
our  Rocco,  our  eldest  who  has  been  in 
America  seven  years.  It  is  the  biggest  let- 
ter he  has  ever  sent." 

"Will  you  not  look  at  the  newspaper?" 
asked  the  husband.  "  A  grand  American 
newspaper!    It  is  wonderful !  Glorious!" 

To  hear  Mr.  Salciccioli  speak  in  such  appre- 
ciative and  enthusiastic  terms  of  anything 
American,  was  so  unheard  of  an  occurrence 
that  I  hastily  told  him  to  show  me  the  paper. 
Eagerly,  while  Mrs.  Salciccioli  hovered 
around,  he  spread  out  before  us  twenty 
odd  sheets  of  newspaper.  Page  after  page 
of  wasted  forest  and  whatever  stuff  printer's 
ink  is  made  from  ;  then  his  thin,  long  finger 
pointed  to  a  picture. 

"  This  is  our  dear  Rocco,"  he  said  proudly, 
"  our  eldest,  and  his  picture  is  in  the  Ameri- 
can paper." 


2o8  The  BROKEN  WALL 


"  I  wonder  what  he  has  been  cured  of," 
murmured  my  wife,  and  I  did  not  tell  the 
proud  Roman  that  in  America  one  might 
have  his  picture  in  the  paper  for  various 
reasons. 

It  was  well  that  I  did  not  so  humiliate  my 
haughty  landlord,  for  I  saw  in  large  head- 
lines, over  columns  of  closely  printed  matter, 
the  reason  that  Rocco's  picture  was  there, 
and  it  fully  justified  the  father's  pride. 

"  New  citizens  banqueted."  Thus  the 
head-lines  ran.  "  Brilliant  speeches  made. 
Cordial  welcome  to  the  naturalized,"  and  so 
down  the  column,  as  follows  : 

"  The  Leading  Men  of  the  City  were  Hosts 
at  a  Banquet  and  Newly  Made  Americans 
Listened  to  Kindly,  Cordial  Speeches. 

"  One  hundred  and  sixty  men  who  once 
were  subjects  of  kings  and  queens  and  czars 
and  emperors  sat  down  to  a  great  dinner 
table  in  R  the  evening  of  July  4th,  sub- 
jects no  longer,  but  citizens  of  the  United 
States.  With  them  sat  down  judges  and 
clergymen  and  educators — the  most  widely 
known  and  influential  men  of  the  city.  These 


AMERICANUS  SUM  209 


men  were  the  hosts  ;  and  the  ex-subjects  of  a 
half  dozen  potentates,  many  of  whom  could 
speak  English  only  brokenly,  diggers  of 
ditches  whose  hands  were  hard  from  outdoor 
toil,  were  the  guests.  The  city  was  bidding 
its  new  citizens  welcome. 

"It  was  an  effort  to  make  this  assemblage 
of  new-made  Americans  feel  that  they  really 
were  Americans,  that  the  old  residents  of 

R  were  glad  that  the  new  ones  had  come, 

and  that  they  were  eager  to  help  them  in 
every  way.  The  guests,  Germans,  Italians, 
Greeks,  men  of  Holland,  Englishmen,  Irish- 
men, Russians  and  Poles,  went  away  feeling 
that  they  were  no  longer  "  strangers  in  a 
strange  land"  but  fellow  citizens  of  their 
hosts  and  that  those  hosts  had  a  real  in- 
terest in  their  welfare. 

"  Dr.  R  ,  president  of  the  university, 

told  the  new  citizens  that  the  stability  of 
the  American  government  depended  upon  a 
reverence  for  law  and  a  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  liberty  under  the  law  is  the  only  true 
liberty. 

"'The  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 


2 1 o  The  BR OKEN  WALL 


dependence/  he  said,  1  were  all  immigrants 
or  the  sons  of  immigrants,  but  they  were  all 
united  in  the  purpose  of  seeking  liberty  in 
this  new  land.  The  America  of  to-morrow 
will  not  be  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home 
of  the  brave  unless  it  is  growing  and  trium- 
phant by  liberty  under  the  law.' 

"  The  most  brilliant  addresses  were  made 
by  the  immigrants  themselves,  who  with  deep 
emotion  told  what  America  meant  to  them." 

Then  came  that  part  of  the  story  told  in 
Rocco's  letter  to  his  parents,  which  his  mother 
had  brought  for  me  to  see.    I  gladly  read  it. 

"  Mv  Adorable  and  Much-loved  Parents  : 

"  I  am  sending  you  by  this  post  fifty 
lire  which  is  a  little  more  than  I  sent  last 
month.  The  ten  extra  lire  are  1  my  treat.' 
That  is  what  the  Americans  say,  when  they 
are  very  happy  and  want  to  give  somebody 
something,  because  they  are  happy.  Often 
they  do  it  by  drinking  much  beer  in  a  saloon. 
I  think  it  would  be  wrong  for  me  to  spend 
money  that  way,  for  my  happiness  is  a  high 


AMERICANUS  SUM  2 1 1 


and  lofty  one  ;  too  high  for  drink.  I  am  too 
happy  even  for  writing.  My  pen  jumps  all 
over  the  paper. 

"  I  am  still  working  in  the  big  shop  as  I 
wrote  you.  The  shop  is  big  and  nice  and 
clean,  and  I  have  a  good  foreman.  The 
only  thing  I  do  not  like  is  that  he  never  calls 
me  by  my  right  name.  He  says  it  would 
break  his  jaw  to  pronounce  it.  Americans 
want  everything  quick  and  easy  ;  so  they  call 
me  Rock.  The  name  of  our  honourable 
family  they  do  not  even  attempt  to  write  or 
pronounce.  They  say  that  it  would  twist 
their  tongues  out  of  joint. 

"  In  the  night  school  where  I  have  been 
going,  they  were  teaching  about  how  to  be  a 
good  citizen,  so  I  asked  my  foreman  how  to 
become  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 

"  He  went  with  me  to  the  court  where  I  was 
asked  if  I  had  my  first  papers,  which  I  was 
glad  to  say  I  could  answer  by  saying  yes. 
Then  the  judge  asked  me  many  questions 
and  when  I  answered  he  said  ;  '  Very  good,' 
which  means  Molto  Bene. 

"  He  asked  me  to  swear  allegiance  to  my 


212  The  BR  OK  EN  WALL 


new  country  and  I  did  it ;  but  it  made  no 
great  impression  upon  me,  as  it  was  done  so 
simply.  The  Americans  do  not  believe  in 
ceremonials  as  we  do.  I  went  away  with  my 
papers  in  my  pocket,  and  then  I  forgot  all 
about  it. 

"  Last  month  one  day,  I  received  a  beauti- 
ful invitation  to  a  banquet  at  the  finest  hotel 
in  the  city.  It  was  printed  in  the  colours  of 
this  free  country :  red,  white  and  blue.  I 
showed  it  to  the  foreman  and  he  said  I  ought 
to  go. 

"  It  was  on  the  4th  of  July.  That  is  the 
day  the  Americans  celebrate  as  the  great 
national  holy  day.  Always  before,  the  shop 
closed  on  that  day  and  we  had  nothing  to 
do  except  drink  and  shoot  firecrackers,  of 
which  the  Americans  are  very  fond.  Many 
of  them  get  hurt  on  that  day,  and  kill  them- 
selves in  memory  of  the  time  when  they 
killed  the  Englishmen. 

"  This  time  I  did  not  buy  drink  or  fire- 
crackers ;  but  a  new  suit  of  clothes,  and  a 
white  shirt  and  a  collar  and  a  beautiful 
cravat.    I  went  to  the  hotel,  the  same  one 


AMERICANUS  SUM  213 

where  I  used  to  scrub  the  floors  and  wash 
the  windows  when  I  first  came  here. 

"  The  man  who  used  to  call  me  Dago,  an 
ugly  name  they  give  the  Italians  here,  took 
my  hat  and  gave  me  a  piece  of  pasteboard 
and  I  was  taken  in  the  elevator  that  the 
guests  ride  in,  to  a  beautiful  room,  all  dec- 
orated with  flags.  I  had  a  seat  at  the  chief 
table  by  the  side  of  the  consul  of  our  country. 

"  The  dinner  was  the  finest  I  have  ever 
eaten.  I  think  not  even  the  highest  nobles 
in  Rome  eat  finer  than  we  did ;  but  better 
than  the  eating  was  the  music,  and  then, 
best  of  all,  the  speeches. 

"  The  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
state  was  the  master  of  ceremonies.  The 
president  of  the  university  made  a  speech,  and 
so  did  the  padre,  who  they  say  is  a  good 
man,  although  you  know  I  have  not  much 
love  for  the  padres  of  our  church. 

"  Then  the  master  of  ceremonies  asked  me 
to  make  a  speech  1 

"  Beloved  and  much  honoured  parents,  I 
felt  as  if  that  whole  room  was  going  around 
and  around.    There  I  stood,  your  son,  before 


2 14  The  BROKEN  WALL 

those  noble  men  and  women,  and  did  speak. 
I  would  have  given  anything  in  the  world  if 
you,  my  beloved  parents,  had  been  there  to 
have  seen  my  triumph.  They  clapped  their 
hands  and  shouted  bravo !  at  everything  I 
said. 

"  I  told  them  that  I  am  a  Roman,  that  my 
father's  ancestors  were  once  citizens  of  old 
Rome ;  I  told  them  how  through  ignorance 
and  heavy  taxation  my  forefathers  lost  every- 
thing, even  their  citizenship,  and  how  thank- 
ful I  am  that  now  in  America,  though  I  am 
working  at  a  menial  job,  citizenship  has  been 
restored  to  me  in  a  more  powerful,  richer  and 
better  country. 

"  I  told  them  how  I  wished  my  beloved 
and  revered  parents  were  here  to  see  the 
triumph  of  their  son.  I  also  said  that  as  my 
ancestors  fought  for  Rome  and  then  for  Italy 
so  I  want  to  fight,  like  our  great  Garibaldi. 

"  I  told  them  that  my  honoured  father 
belonged  to  the  Young  Italy,  that  he  knew 
the  great  Mazzini,  our  statesman,  scholar  and 
philosopher. 

"  I  told  them  that  he  fought  against  the 


AMERICANUS  S  UM  2 1 5 

Austrians  and  later  against  the  Papal  army, 
at  Castelfidardo ;  how  he  was  wounded  on 
the  17th  of  September  (I  am  not  sure  about 
that  date,  much  honoured  and  respected 
father,  but  the  Americans  are  ignorant  of 
our  history  and  it  does  not  matter). 

"  At  last  I  could  not  hear  myself  talk,  for 
the  Americans  clapped  their  hands  all  the 
time. 

"Then,  my  beloved  and  much  honoured 
parents,  came  the  great  event  of  the  even- 
ing. All  rose  to  their  feet  and  together  we 
vowed  for  the  good  of  the  city  in  which  we 
live. 

"  This  is  what  we  all  vowed  : 

"  '  We  will  never  bring  disgrace  to  this 
our  city  by  any  act  of  dishonesty  or  cowardice, 
nor  ever  desert  our  comrades ;  we  will  fight 
for  the  ideals  and  sacred  things  of  the  city, 
both  alone  and  with  many ;  we  will  revere 
and  obey  the  city's  laws,  and  do  our  best  to 
incite  a  like  respect  and  reverence  for  those 
above  us  who  are  prone  to  annul  them  and 
set  them  at  naught ;  we  will  strive  unceas- 
ingly to  quicken  the  public's  sense  of  civic 


2 1 6  The  BROKEN  WALL 


duty  ;  that  thus,  in  all  these  ways,  we  may 
transmit  this  city  not  only  not  less  but  greater, 
better  and  more  beautiful  than  it  was  trans- 
mitted to  us.' 

"  When  it  was  all  done  we  sang  together 
the  American  national  hymn. 

"  After  I  got  home  to  my  lodgings  I  could 
not  sleep,  but  I  went  to  my  trunk  and  took 
out  my  citizenship  papers.  I  spread  them 
out  upon  my  bed,  and  I  knelt  down  before 
them  and  I  kissed  them  a  hundred  times,  and 
I  said,  over  and  over  again :  '  Americanus 
Sum — Americanus  Sum.' 

"  Now,  my  beloved  and  adored  parents,  I 
send  you  the  paper  which  tells  about  it  and 
has  my  picture,  that  you  only  see  that  I  report 
correctly  to  you. 

"  My  picture  is  not  very  well  done.  I 
.  hink  I  look  much  better  in  life.  In  the  big 
picture  which  is  also  in  the  paper,  where  all 
are  taken  together,  I  look  like  a  ghost ;  for  it 
was  taken  with  a  big  flash  of  light,  and  I  was 
frightened  very  much. 

"  Now,  my  beloved  and  much  esteemed 
parents  "    Here  the  father  asked  me  to 


A MERICANUS  SUM  2 1 7 

read  no  farther — but  his  wife  urged  me  to  go 
on. 

"  I  hope  you  are  not  worrying  any  more 
over  your  son,  and  that  you  feel  you  have 
cause  to  be  proud  of  him. 

"  I  like  the  work  and  am  honoured  by  the 
foreman.  I  do  not  gamble  any  more,  and 
some  of  these  days  when  everything  is  for- 
gotten in  Rome  I  shall  come  home  to  see 
you  " 

I  returned  the  letter  unfinished  to  Mrs. 
Salciccioli,  for  her  husband  was  growing 
more  and  more  uneasy. 

Taking  the  newspaper  and  the  letter,  he 
disappeared  with  scant  courtesy,  leaving  his 
excited  wife  to  follow  at  her  leisure.  She 
was  eager  to  tell  us  about  her  Rocco,  and  we 
were  not  unwilling  to  hear. 

Rocco  was  born  into  genteel  poverty,  the 
oldest  of  many.  The  father  was  proud  and 
harsh,  and  the  boy  was  on  the  streets  more 
than  in  school  or  at  home.  He  fell  in  with 
evil  minded  people  and  before  his  twelfth 
year  was  arrested  for  picking  pockets. 

He  went  from  bad  to  worse,  until  he  was 


2 1 8  The  BROKEN  WALL 


drafted  into  the  army  ;  there,  chafing  under 
the  restraint,  he  deserted  and  went  to 
America. 

The  father  became  morose  and  silent,  and 
forbade  the  boy's  name  to  be  mentioned  in 
the  family. 

When  letters  finally  came  from  Rocco  he 
never  read  them.  Even  when  the  letters 
brought  enclosures  of  ten  lire,  twenty,  thirty 
and  as  much  as  fifty  lire  a  month  the  father 
refused  to  believe  in  the  boy. 

"  Not  until  last  night,  Signor,  when  the 
newspaper  came  would  he  speak  our  boy's 
name.  Now  he  is  happy  and  proud.  And  I, 
Signorina,"  turning  to  my  wife.  "  You  will 
know  how  I  feel  when  your  boys  grow  up. 
Ah  !  the  blessed  Virgin  only  knows  how  I 
have  prayed. 

"  Honoured  Signor,  will  you  do  me  one 
great  favour?  When  you  return  to  that 
wonderful  America  of  yours  will  you  go  to 
its  ruler  and  carry  to  his  honourable  highness 
the  gratitude  of  an  Italian  mother  for  what 
that  noble  country  has  done  for  her  son  ?  " 

It  had  taken  Mrs.  Salciccioli  a  long  time 


AMERICANUS  S  UM  2 1 9 

to  tell  her  story ;  so  the  morning  was  over 
and  the  luncheon  hour  near,  when  at  last, 
with  many  apologies,  she  bowed  herself  out. 

I  felt  repaid  for  my  lost  morning,  however, 
when,  a  few  moments  later  as  we  were  going 
out  into  the  glory  of  an  Italian  noon,  Mr. 
Salciccioli  stopped  me  at  the  foot  of  the  long, 
cold  staircase. 

"  Signor, — I  beg  your  pardon.  I  have 
said  to  you  often  that  your  country  has  no 
pictures,  no  music, — that  it  cannot  make  gods 
out  of  Carrara  marble.  That  is  all  true  I  still 
believe — but  " — and  he  said  it  with  evident 
reluctance — "  it  has  made  a  man  out  of  my 
son  Rocco,  and  that  is  true  Art — the  grandest, 
the  noblest  art." 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA  3 


FICTION  OF  WORTH 


NORMAN  DUNCAN 

The  Best  of  a  Bad  Job 

A  Hearty  Tale  of  the  Sea.  Illus.,  net  $1.00 
Norman  Duncan  is  as  much  at  home  along  the  coasts  ot 
Labrador  and  Newfoundland  as  Kipling  is  in  India  or  Dick- 
ens was  in  London.  In  this,  his  latest  tale  of  "Down 
North,"  he  combines  that  charming  realism  and  heart  stirring 
sentiment  in  a  style  which  is  the  despair  of  the  reviewer  and 
the  delight  of  the  reader. 

CAROLINE  ABBOT  STANLEY 

The  Master  of  "The  Oaks" 

Illustrated,  i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.25. 
Of  Mrs.  Stanley's  literary  work  The  San  Francisco 
Chronicle  said:  "If  it  be  high  art  to  move  the  reader 
deeply,  to  grip  the  heart  strings  by  a  story  that  is  without 
stage  mannerisms  and  which  deals  with  only  real  people 
and  legitimate  situations,  then  Caroline  Abbot  Stanley  should 
reach   a   high   place   among  story-tellers   of  to-day." 

CLARA  E.  LA  UGH  LIN 

The  Penny  PhilanthropisT: 

With  Frontispiece,  i2mo.  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

This  story  of  "Peggy",  the  proprietor  of  the  Halsted 
Street,  News  "Imporium"  will  quicken  the  beat  of  sympa- 
thetic hearts.  '"Others"  was  her  motto,  and  those  who 
read  the  sparkling  record  of  her  penny-a-day  philanthropy 
will  thereafter  irresistibly  think  more  of  others.  The  Penny 
Philanthropist,  like  the  widow  with  her  mite,  will  enshrine 
herself  in  the  hearts  of  those  who  love  the  unobtrusive  deeds 
of  simple  kindliness. 

JAMES  M.  LUDLOW 

Avanti!   Garibaldi's  Battle  Cry 

A  Tale  of  the  Resurrection  of  Sicily— 1860.  i2mo, 
cloth,  net  $1.25. 

The  author  of  "The  Captain  of  the  Janizaries,"  "Deborah,  ' 
"Sir  Raoul,"  etc.,  adds  another  historical  tale  to  the 
list  of  his  earlier  successes.  Sicily,  the  picturesque  in 
the  time  of  Garibaldi,  is  the  scene  of  this  stirring  romance, 
A  delightful  love  story  runs  throughout;  but  there  are  other 
passions  than  those  of  the  tenderer  sort, — those  that  come  out 
in  politcal  intrigue,  in  splendid  patriotism,  and  in  battle  rage. 

WINIFRED  ARNOLD 

Mis'  Bassett's  Matrimony  Bureau 

illustrated,  i2mo,  cloth,  net  $1.00. 

Si,  Ezry  and  Zekle,  Cynthy,  Elviny  and  Mirandy  with 
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*nd  homely  phraseology  of  "way  down  East"  disport  them- 
selves to  the  "everlastin"  delight  of  the  reader.  "How 
wild  she  do  it,"  "where  did  she  get  it  all"  have  been  the 
expressions  of  advance  readers. 


FICTION 


NORMAN  DUNCAN  Authorof'Dr.  Luke,"  etc 

The  Measure  of  a  Man 

A  Tale  of  the  Big  Woods.    Illustrated,  net  $1.25. 

"The  Measure  of  a  Man"  is  Mr.  Duncan's  first  full-sized 
novel  having  a  distinct  motif  and  purpose  since  "Doctor  Luke 
of  The  Labrador."  The  tale  of  the  big  woods  has  for  itt 
hero,  John  Fairmeadow — every  inch  a  man  whom  the  Lumber 
Jacks  of  his  parish  in  the  pines  looked  up  to  as  their  Sky 
Pilot.  Human  nature  in  the  rough  is  here  portrayed  with  a 
faithfulness  that  is  convincing. 

ROBERT  E.  KNOWLES  Author  of  "Si.  Cuthberts,"  etc, 

The  Singer  of  the  Kootenay 

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The  scene  of  action  for  Mr.  Knowles'  latest  navel  is  in 
the  Crow's  Nest  Pass  of  the  Kootenay  Mountains  of  British 
Columbia.  To  this  dramatic  field  he  has  gone  for  local  color 
and  has  taken  every  advantage  of  his  wide  knowledge,  pic- 
turing life  of  every  phase  in  his  most  artistic  style. 

HAROLD  BEGBIE  Author  of"  Twici-Born  Men" 

The  Shadow 

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A  new  story  by  the  novelist  whose  study  of  regenera- 
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gasp  at  its  startling  revelations  of  the  almost  overlooked 
proofs  of  the  power  of  conversion  to  be  found  among  tht 
lowest  humanity.  His  latest  work  is  a  brilliant  study  of 
modern  life  which  will  maintain  the  author's  reputation. 

RUPERT  HUGHES 

Miss  318 

A  Story  in  Season  and  out  of  Season.  Illustrated, 

l2mo,  cloth,  net  75c. 

"Is  there  any  excuse  for  one  more  Christmas  story?" 
"Surely  nothing  has  been  left  unsaid."  "The  truth,  per- 
haps." "The  truth? — about  Christmas!  Would  anybody  care 
to  read  it?"  "Perhaps."  "But  would  anybody  dare  to  pub- 
lish it?"  "Probably  not."  "That  sounds  interesting!  What 
nobody  would  care  to  read  and  nobody  would  dare  to  pub- 
lish, ought  to  be  well  worth  writing." 

/.  J.  BELL  Author  of  "Oh!  Chruttna!"  etc 

The  Indiscretions  of  Maimer  Redhorn 

Illustrated,  i6mo,  cloth,  net  60c. 
The  thousands  who  have  read  Wullie  McWatHe's  i>/uu- 
*er  will  need  no  introduction  to  this  Scottish  'penter"  and 
his  "pint  o'  view."  The  same  dry  Scottish  humor,  win- 
ning philosophy  and  human  nature  fairly  overflow  these 
cages. 


Date  Due 

1 

 1 

f) 

